The Humble Stethoscope Gets a High-Tech Makeover

The stethoscope’s effectiveness depends on the skill, experience and hearing abilities of the doctor using it. Companies and cardiologists are working to bring the tool into the 21st century. Photo: iStock/Getty Images

The stethoscope, a primary symbol of the medical profession, has been used by doctors to detect heart and lung malfunctions for the past 200 years. That being said, is the stethoscope too outdated to serve its primary functions in assisting doctors today?

Without the proper training and accumulation of experience, the stethoscope serves inadequate information for doctors to diagnose patients with irregular heart beats or lung deficiencies. Eko, a Berkley, California based start up business, has been working along doctors and companies to develop and 21^st century stethoscope. The new digital stethoscope will acquire information by placing the monitor on the patient’s chest, it will be able to detect heart rhythm disorders or lung deficiencies. All the date is then sent to a mobile app and displays all the information found. Davinder Ramsingh, an associate professor of anesthesiology at Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California states, “Instead of just hearing, you can see”, emphasizing how revolutionary this new tool will be.

I chose this article because it was interesting to see how many doctors are still skeptical about making the transition from the typical stethoscope to the new technological stethoscope despite all the benefits that it has. You would assume that the medical profession is constantly willing to adapt new technology because of how fast we see health care transforming from the outside looking in, but in reality many are skeptics and need time to embrace change.

This article relates to the marketing concept because the new digital stethoscope is in the stages of a new product life cycle. The digital stethoscopes are in the stage of market introduction; doctors need to be more informed about the stethoscope in order to be persuaded to use the product. Also, sales tend to be low as of now because of how expensive the stethoscope is. The stethoscope has made it through the idea generation step in the new product development process, and has surpassed the screening step in 2017 when the FDA cleared for use of the stethoscope. Now in between the idea evaluation and development steps, Eko can evaluate reactions from doctors to better develop and revise their tangible prototype.

By: Brianna Abbott

Updated April 25, 2019 11:01 a.m. ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-humble-stethoscope-gets-a-high-tech-makeover-11556204510?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2