Mike Moore chats with Eko Health founder and CEO Connor Landgraf on this week’s episode to discuss the creation of Eko’s AI-powered stethoscope, a powerful tool that aims to more effectively and efficiently diagnose and treat lung and heart disease. As Connor unpacks the creation of Eko, the history of stethoscopes, and how the software itself is sold, he also reveals how it’s being accepted in the field as a whole and how the FDA views technological leaps in the medical field. While Eko Health, in just six years, has already become a valuable resource among providers, both on an individual and an institutional level, Connor Landgraf also takes some time to share where he hopes to take this technology in the future. Notable Quotes“Getting the sound to be loud enough is a big challenge. Depending upon the patient, their body anatomy, there’s a lot of things. They can also have really diminished heart sounds or breath sounds in certain situations. So literally just hearing the sounds in an ICU, with monitors going on in the background beeping, intubation machines, there's just all these noises that make it really hard for the provider to hear the patient's heart sounds or breath sounds. So even just being able to like isolate and amplify the sound makes a big difference to the provider’s confidence.” - Connor (7:35)“We have indications on the AI side for identifying structural murmurs associated with valvular heart disease, doing arrhythmia assessments, identification of AFib, some basic assessments of heart rate (so bradycardia and tachycardia), and then we have an algorithm in development that lets us do prediction of whether a patient likely has low ejection fraction or an impaired, a weak heart pump, weak heart muscle, and the ability to actually kind of flag that and say, ‘Hey, there’s early signs…’” - Connor (11:12)In This Episode(1:13) Connor Landgraf shares Eko’s beginning (4:23) The issue of misdetection with regular stethoscopes (9:36) Eko’s current capability, development, and tiers of access (15:30) Growth of the digital device since 2016 and the FDA’s perspective(20:23) How the industry is helping the FDA widen their understanding of digital health (22:31) Connor hints at possible future technology from Eko(26:12) Touching on competition in the market Our GuestFounder and CEO of Eko Health Connor Landgraf developed an AI-powered stethoscope, algorithm, and software to help physicians diagnose and treat heart and lung disease in patients more efficiently and effectively. While Eko Health caters to both the individual physician and the institutional market, this digital-centered stethoscope is just the beginning for Eko. 

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