Malaysia creates world’s first AI-equipped stethoscope
Malaysia has created the world’s first artificial-intelligence-equipped stethoscope said Health Ministry director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
“It will disrupt how we listen to the heart and lungs with detailed and accurate analyses,” he posted on the official Health D-G website recently.
Dr Noor Hisham said that this is the first device in the world to have evolved from the traditional stethoscope, which has not been updated in approximately 200 years.
“This cutting edge and innovative stethoscope will also empower remote and rural healthcare through simple yet precise surveillance and detection of heart and lung diseases,” he added.
The Stethee system includes three core products: the Stethee Pro, Stethee Vet and Stethee Edu.
The Stethee Pro has received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use by medical and healthcare professionals.
The Stethee is designed to work as easily as a traditional stethoscope, allowing users to listen to heart and lung sounds with sophisticated amplification and filtering technology, said Dr Noor Hisham.
He added that the recordings can then be transmitted to a smart device such as a smartphone or a tablet via Bluetooth, and analysed to build a personal biometric signature for each patient to detect the presence of heart or lung diseases.
Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (Aida), the technology platform behind the Stethee AI engine, also automatically tags geo-location and aggregate environmental data such as temperature, humidity, pollen count and the pollutant index for analysis by healthcare professionals.
Aida analyses this data – which is encrypted and anonymised – and is able to provide doctors, vets and healthcare professionals with quantitative data that can be used to benefit patients.
The product was a strategic partnership between the Health Ministry, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida), Collaborative Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (CREST), and M3DICINE, and was facilitated by the Telemedicine Development Group (TDG).
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
