Innovation of the week: A digital stethoscope

An "iconic tool of doctors" is getting a 21st-century upgrade, said Steve Lohr at The New York Times. Eko Core is a digital device that attaches to a conventional stethoscope and records and amplifies heart sounds, sending the audio and sound-wave images to an iPhone app. From there, the data can be shared with hospitals and clinics.

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The device could help doctors make more accurate diagnoses by enabling them "to hear and see the pattern of a patient's heart rhythms in greater detail," as well as quickly compare heart sounds from a recent visit to those from a year or two ago. The Berkeley, California-based startup is also working on an algorithm that compares a patient's heart rhythms with a cloud-based data library of heart sounds, so that doctors can quickly ascertain whether the patient's results are abnormal or normal. Eko Core, which is FDA approved, starts at $199.