The stethoscope is dead — long live the electronic stethoscope

What is the easiest way to get mistaken for a doctor? Carry a stethoscope.

This happened to me (and not for the first time) last week while going through security at the airport. Due to the nature of my work I frequently carry a stethoscope while traveling. Security control detected a suspicious electronic item in my hand luggage and asked me to open up my hand luggage. An electronic stethoscope appears and I’m instantly called “Doctor”.

For the last two-centuries the stethoscope has been regarded as the unofficial identifier of a doctor. Do you know of any other tool that’s been associated with a specific profession for so long? But according to various opinions and publications this device is at a crossroad. The main reasons given are the higher access to superior imaging technologies, pocket size ultrasound devices and a general feeling that doctors are not good at using a stethoscope.

The electronic stethoscope initially held the promise of giving this 200-year-old device a lifeline. But with features limited to sound amplification, ambient noise reduction and nearly no applications to unlock the potential benefits, the uptake of this variation of the stethoscope is also limited and the benefit not worth the extra few hundred dollars. The fact that these two stethoscopes are marketed head-to-head within the same channel is also not helping.

Today the electronic stethoscope is like a smartphone without the ability to connect to the Internet or download apps. It’s like having a mobile phone without Mobile Network Carriers that could provide a connection or service to a bigger network and ecosystem. A smartphone with functions limited to that of a fixed line device.

But we all know that the frequencies and rhythms from the sounds of your body will tell a thousand stories about your health. Therefore, imagine you can hook these sounds from your heart, lungs and bowels to a cognitive system in the cloud. Instantly extracting parameters from sounds you can’t even hear, and display it in such a manner that you can understand and telling you what it hears.

With the current advances in digital health technology we are more than halfway there. Algorithms to extracting and analyzing sound parameters you can’t even hear and offering a diagnosis do exist.

But for mainstream adoption the electronic stethoscope distribution model and channels need to be reconfigured. A network infrastructure, over which services could be delivered, billed and maintained is required. Integration with larger healthcare platforms is required, including new business models.

It must be a no-brainer for the physician to procure a stethoscope with a service provider, download diagnostic applications, place it on a patient’s chest and get an instant health reading.