New technology is surpassing our ability to listen, but medicine is still trailing behind.

Women are dying at extraordinarily high rates from one disorder above all others. What is it? Heart disease is consistently the #1 leading cause of death for women in the United States, a fact that has remained true for many years, including the projected data for 2025. It causes more deaths than all forms of cancer combined and affects women of all ages.

One of the most disturbing facts is that the risk is rising in younger women ages 35–54. In fact, 60 million women in the United States now suffer from some form of cardiac illness. Is it that the illness isn’t detected in women, or are the detection techniques insufficient? We know the symptoms differ in women from those in men, and that must be considered as well.

Let’s think about how there might be a missed diagnosis in anyone, but particularly in women. You find yourself in your doc’s office when your physician uses a modern device to both visualize your heart issues and detect previously unknown medical conditions through visual examination. Today, medical facilities worldwide implement this technology, which was previously considered science fiction. But not all medical practices are up-to-date with this. As I said to one of my physicians, “Medicine is still in the dark ages in private practices.”

Ask yourself one simple question: How good are my healthcare professionals’ ears? Is their hearing as sharp as before? Are they able to detect the subtleties in heart and lung function simply by listening to them?

To me, there are problems here, just as there is another issue in taking blood pressure readings by listening with a stethoscope on the arm. BTW, is there a proper way to hold the arm during this and which arm should be used? Then, of course, there’s the entire issue of the binding they place around your arm for the blood pressure reading. Does anyone ever clean that, or is there a disposable covering for it? There is a disposable covering, but I’ve never seen anyone using one.

The humble stethoscope, invented in 1816, is undergoing a major upgrade. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has enabled medical tools to become highly advanced, which helps physicians detect heart and lung issues that human listening skills can‘t identify easily. Stethoscopes are among the tools in the new armamentarium.

We know that physicians require extensive training over years to distinguish between normal and abnormal heart sounds accurately when using traditional stethoscopes. But healthcare professionals at all levels of experience occasionally fail to detect crucial diagnostic information. The AI-powered stethoscope functions as a medical expert system that integrates into the device and doesn’t totally depend on the human ear.

These modern stethoscopes use artificial intelligence that has been trained on hundreds of thousands of heart and lung recordings. They can detect problems in just 15 seconds that might take physicians much longer to identify — if they catch them at all.

The Heart of the Matter: Detecting Heart Failure

Heart failure may not be detected during standard medical appointments because the condition often produces subtle warning signs that are difficult to recognize. There is also a failure to detect fatigue and shortness of breath symptoms in patients because they incorrectly attribute these symptoms to typical signs of aging and physical inactivity. Do you know how many respirations per minute are considered normal?

The Imperial College in the UK conducted a study which showed AI stethoscopes help doctors detect heart problems with double the accuracy of standard medical equipment. Even more impressive, patients examined with smart stethoscopes were 3.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (an irregular heartbeat that can lead to stroke) and nearly twice as likely to receive a diagnosis of heart valve disease. AI found something that someone listening with their ears might have missed.

The system detects heartbeat and blood flow changes that humans can’t hear. The Mayo Clinic believes that the stethoscope tool enables clinicians to detect potentially life-threatening heart conditions, which saves lives by preventing hospitalizations and adverse medical outcomes.

A Game-Changer for Women’s Health

The most exciting application of this technology emerges through its application for pregnancy care. Heart problems during pregnancy are dangerous and often go undetected because symptoms like shortness of breath and fatigue are common during pregnancy.

Research conducted in Nigeria demonstrated that AI-powered stethoscopes enable physicians to detect heart failure in pregnant women at twice the rate of traditional medical methods. And AI stethoscopes detected peripartum cardiomyopathy 12 times better than standard screening procedures for this particular heart failure condition.

Beyond Hearts: Smart Listening for Lung Problems

But there’s more, and this applies to kids. A study in Respiratory Research demonstrated that AI algorithms achieved 95% positive agreement for detecting abnormal breath sounds in children, specifically for crackle detection. Where might this technology be most effectively used, beyond pregnancy and in children?

The technology shows its most significant value in identifying the following medical conditions:
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
• Asthma
• Pneumonia
• COVID-19 and other respiratory infections

The Market is Booming

The AI-powered stethoscope market worldwide is expected to expand to $63.5 million in 2025, up from its prior value of $47.9 million in 2020. The hospital sector dominates this market segment because hospitals require precise and efficient diagnostic equipment for their various departments, which results in a 79.6% market share.

Private practices will probably not be using this technology currently because of the cost involved. However, as private practices are acquired by large hospital networks, the instruments should filter out to them, or they will be making referrals to hospitals that utilize this technology.

Looking to the Future

The future is here, and AI-powered stethoscopes are being integrated into established medical practices with modern technological advancements. The system preserves the existing medical format, which physicians and patients already understand, while introducing new detection features that identify severe health issues at their early stages. No one has to convince us that catching illnesses early saves lives.

We should now have technology that leads to improved health outcomes for patients with heart and lung diseases, but more advances in AI are on the horizon, and we can expect further improvements in diagnostic techniques. The age of AI is only beginning to bloom now. We have greater strides to make in healthcare for the benefit of all.

Although the stethoscope has existed for more than 200 years, AI technology could bring its true promise into the present. We stopped putting our ear to the chest two millennia ago, and now we’re stopping putting that small metallic circle to the chest without AI integration. Are your hospital and healthcare providers on board with this incredible advance? You might want to ask.