Stethoscopes have been the primary tool for health providers in diagnosing and managing health problems. Growth of Digital stethoscopes has allowed health providers to think way beyond one-to-one patient management. Digital Stethoscopes have expanded the horizon of stethoscopes in many different ways, some of which are listed below:
- Expanding Remote Patient Care: Listening to the sounds remotely during a live consultation or through recorded files is one of the most common applications of digital stethoscope worldwide. Use of digital stethoscopes in Telemedicine has allowed quality health services to reach rural and remote areas, and also to patients who are unable to leave their homes.
- Ensuring Continuity of care: With the ability of storing patient sounds along with the required patient information in a secure format has allowed continuity of care in a more meaningful way. Physicians and other health providers can make the sound files as part of patient’s medical records for future reference and managing progress more objectively than before.
- Simplifying use of sounds for teaching: Digital Stethoscopes have also shown to be extremely helpful in teaching due to their ability of recording sounds and play these sounds in different speeds and volume.
- Assisting health providers with impaired hearing: Most digital stethoscopes can be connected with a variety of hearing aids using the Bluetooth connectivity option to help health professionals with compromised or impaired listening.
- Assistance in diagnosis and management through Artificial Intelligence (AI): Application of AI has opened up enormous opportunities for using live and recorded sounds in healthcare. One of the most critical use is to assist remote health providers in managing the patients remotely using assistance in diagnosis and treatment. Advancement in AI and machine learning, especially with the introduction of ChatGPT, will set to open new research and advancement of health services using digital stethoscopes.
eSteth Digital Stethoscopes are leading the industry by providing high quality sounds to ensure better diagnosis and treatment. eSteth Stethoscopes are also incorporating AI to further expand the role of digital stethoscopes in Telemedicine and remote care.