The Superior Stethoscope: Eko CORE: If there is one aspect of medicine that's more art than science, it's the way doctors listen to heartbeats- trusting their fallible ears and memory to detect aberrations over time. Not so with Eko CORE. Once the smart adapter is attached to a stethoscope, it streams heartbeat data to the cloud so physicians can download it to a smartphone. From there, a companion app can analyze the audio and compare it to previous recordings, which may help doctors detect heart-valve abnormalities and other conditions that "our ears are not able to," says Dr. John Chorba, a cardiologist (and mentor to one of the inventors) who's leading an Eko trial at the University of California, San Francisco. If the device works as planned-early signs are positive-it could not only improve overall care but also drastically reduce the need for expensive tests like echocardiograms.
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