The Journal of mHealth Vol 2 Issue 2 (Apr 2015) | страница 10

INDUSTRY
NEWS
News and Information for
Digital Health Professionals

Intelligent Stethoscope
Attachment Set for
Clinical Trial
Eko, a smart stethoscope developer has
announced the start of a clinical study with
UCSF Cardiology and the closing of a $2 million
funding round. According to the company ‘Core’
by Eko is the first stethoscope to be wirelessly
connected to a smart device – ushering in a new
era of advanced heart sound analytics and monitoring by any stethoscope owner.

The Eko Core isn’t a fully digital stethoscope but
an attachment to the familiar analogue version.
“We realised the form factor actually matters a
lot,” says Eko Devices’ CEO and co-founder,
Connor Landgraf.

The device, which slips onto an analogue stethoscope and connects via Bluetooth to software
on the operator’s iPhone or iPad, can not only
amplify heartbeat sounds but track and log them
as well. Heartbeats can be stored in the company’s HIPAA-compliant database and attached to
electronic health records.

The device has been developed to easily integrate
into clinical workflows. By attaching to a clinicians stethoscope in under a minute it can also
be used to reduce unnecessary screenings – a
heart sound can be securely sent from any doctor or nurse to a cardiologist for review before
the patient is given an expensive and potentially unnecessary echocardiogram. Eko has also
formed partnerships with EHR companies, like
Dr. Chrono, to seamlessly connect heart sound
data with patient records.

Using the Core electronic stethoscope attachment and connected software, clinicians can
amplify, record, save, share, and analyse patient
heart sounds from the stethoscope they already
own. The ability to evaluate cardiac health with
unprecedented clarity and use recorded heart
sounds for short and long-term patient monitoring will reduce unnecessary cardiac screenings
and improve continuity of care.
“Though the stethoscope is an icon of medicine and one of clinicians’ most trusted tools, it
is a 200-year old technology greatly in need of
an update. This investment round and upcoming UCSF study is a momentous step towards a
new age in stethoscope intelligence and cardiac
monitoring” said Eko’s CEO and Co-Founder,
Connor Landgraf.

8

April 2015

“The stethoscope has remained an icon of medicine for 200 years we’re not going to change that.”

Landgraf claims the idea came about during
a project while he was at Berkeley in graduate
school for biomedical engineering. He and his
two cofounders, then-undergraduates Jason Bellet and Tyler Crouch, were introduced to a panel
of six physicians brought in by a professor to
talk about issues in their practice. One challenge
that stood out: stethoscopes. It takes lots of
practice to interpret a heartbeat, and according
to Landgraf, some of the physicians from that
first panel simply didn’t feel confident with them.
“What’s really exciting is it has the potential to
make internists and nurse practitioners and other