In 1816 French doctor René Laennec invented it an instrument that allowed doctors to take heed to people’s hearts and lungs. This device – the stethoscope – eventually evolved from a easy wood tube to the lightweight, two-earpiece version that almost all doctors wear around their necks today.
Eco health, a startup founded in 2013, brings this ubiquitous medical tool into the digital age by enhancing it with artificial intelligence. Over the last decade, Eko has sold its stethoscope to over 500,000 doctors and healthcare professionals. As it has been used on hundreds of thousands of patients, the company has amassed a large dataset of chest sounds and electrocardiogram (ECG) information, which Eko has used to develop various heart disease detection algorithms.
“The stethoscope examination is extremely inconsistent and inaccurate. Patients are diagnosed late or misdiagnosed,” said Connor Landgraf, CEO and founder of Eko Health. “We want to bring precision through artificial intelligence that could enable patients to make earlier and more informed diagnoses.”
Landgraf explained that with a traditional stethoscope, a doctor cannot at all times hear the subtle differences between health and disease. “Thanks to our artificial intelligence, they can join forces [heart sounds] with an assessment of your heart rhythm and then ask the AI to interpret it. You almost have the skills of a cardiologist in the pocket of a primary care physician or even a nurse or frontline health care worker,” he said.
In April, the Eko stethoscope received FDA approval to make use of artificial intelligence to detect ffirst signs of heart failure during a routine medical examination. This is the company’s third algorithm to receive FDA approval. Eko’s AI has also recently been adapted for detection heart murmurs, which could also be a sign of abnormal heart valves. (A study at Massachusetts General Hospital found that Eko’s AI identified more than twice as many heart disease patients in comparison with primary care physicians.)
Eko’s clinical track record helped it raise $41 million in Series D funding with participation from ARTIS Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, NTTVC and Questa Capital. The latest capital injection brings the company’s total funding to $165 million.
The latest funding will probably be used to coach artificial intelligence algorithms to detect lung diseases resembling asthma and pneumonia, in addition to to sell devices and software to accompany doctors outside the U.S.
“Of all the things I have invested in, Eko may be one of the most practical because it can be easily used to change outcomes,” said Vas Bailey, partner at ARTIS Ventures. Bailey lost his father to heart disease on his eleventh birthday. “We may find more cases of heart problems when you go to the doctor for a routine check-up. We may give you the chance to assist save your life as part of your screening. Maybe it will have helped save my dad’s life.
While no other company has integrated AI into a stethoscope, other startups using AI to detect heart disease include Ultromics AND Cardio signal.