AI-Powered Stethoscope in the UK

Announcement

The stethoscope was invented more than 200 years ago. The doctor’s stethoscope has remained a major part of a medic’s toolkit for addressing heartbeat ratio and detecting health problems within the body. The medical devices are leading ahead with the AI upgradation. The doctor team in the UK has introduced an AI-powered stethoscope that can address heart conditions in patients in 15 seconds. The AI-driven stethoscope is capable of diagnosing heart valve disease, abnormal heart rhythms, and heart failure in patients by examining differences in a patient’s blood flow and heartbeat that are hard to detect by the human ear. In the same timeframe, it also takes a quick electrocardiogram (ECG).

The AI tool was developed by researchers at Imperial College Healthcare (NHS) trust and Imperial College London, with collective funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and British Heart Foundation in the UK. The researchers have provided further details of the AI-powered stethoscope at the European Society of Cardiology annual congress in Madrid.

The device has come up as a breakthrough in cardiology, as it will bring early diagnosis in the healthcare sector, which is pivotal for the three heart conditions. It came into the limelight at a time when the forecasted AI-led tools were experiencing great momentum by owing to the generative AI growth. Though the AI medical devices come with the risk, as patients might receive wrong diagnoses for health conditions because of information hallucination. The researchers behind the innovation of the AI-powered stethoscope have mentioned that the device should be used on patients who already have symptoms of suspicious heart problems, avoiding its use for routine health check-ups.

Views and Statements from the Smart Tech Doctors

Imperial College London’s National Heart and Lung Institute and Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust’s Dr. Patrik Bachtiger said, “The design for the stethoscope has remained the same for 200 years. So, it is exciting that a smart stethoscope is applicable for 15 15-second examinations addition to this, AI can speedily provide a test result for detecting heart valve disease, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure.”

Clinical director of the British Heart Foundation and consultant cardiologist, Dr. Sonya Babu-Narayan, said, “These innovations are what we need to enable early identification of heart failure, as this condition is diagnosable at an advanced stage, as patients visit under emergency. With early diagnosis, people will receive the required treatment on time.”