We created the "DIY Digital Stethoscope" due to need for auscultating patients in COVID wards. Because of wearing coveralls, traditional stethoscope couldn't be used and the commercially available electronic stethoscopes are out of reach of the majority of physicians because of the high cost. Some commercially available products provide attachments for stethoscope, which are cheaper than electronic stethoscope, but are still quite costly and damages the stethoscope. The aim for this device was to create a simple, low-cost yet effective method to help physicians auscultate, and deliver highest possible level of patient care, without damaging your existing stethoscope. So, just plug in a microphone and let our app handle the rest.
Features:
- Amplification: App lets you amplify faintest sounds to your desired level, without distorting the signal.
- Noise Reduction: The app uses 5 distinct noise reduction features, adapting to the background noise to provide clear auscultation without harming the signal.
- Dedicated Cardiac mode for better auscultation
- Store and Share: Unlike some of contemporary devices, DIY lets you store as many recordings and share them conveniently with your colleagues.
Using this device, one can:
- Auscultate using headphones over PPE: Physicians aren't able to auscultate in most COVID wards, relying on alternative tools, but, amongst the information provided by a stethoscope, detection of a wheeze and symmetry of breath sound in a ventilated patient are perhaps the most difficult to obtain from other modalities and are the one with good interventions available.
- Auscultate from safe distance in OPDs
- Telemedicine: This device provides physician with the means to auscultate patients remotely. LRTI is one of leading cause of Under-5 mortality. Imagine, ASHA workers using these devices to help physicians auscultate, from a distant location and make a more informed decision regarding treatment of a child.
- Medical Education: Pair it with a speaker during playback, to allow multiple people to auscultate simultaneously, helping students understand sounds better. We all have been in a scenario where the attending consultant discovers some findings on auscultation which you are unable to appreciate. Just pair your device to a speaker and then you can objectively point out the sound of interest
- Physicians with hearing disabilities can use this device to compensate for their disability
Our aim with this device was not to create the best electronic stethoscope but a electronic stethoscope which is good enough to be clinically useful and yet frugal enough to be within the reach of most physicians. So, using components which most physicians would already be possessing and ability to preserve the stethoscope were vital.
We did a study comparing our device with a traditional stethoscope for 100 auscultation events by multiple observers, and found that two stethoscopes had very good agreement. One of the shortcomings we found was higher noise levels in DIY stethoscope as compared to traditional. Overall, the device performs well in quiet environment like wards, but in noisy ambience, one needs to focus harder to appreciate breath or cardiac sounds. We will publish the findings of our study soon.
The app is available free of cost on the Google Play Store and we do recognise it is still a work in progress and has a long way to go before it becomes an excellent tool. That being said, the device in its current form is still good enough to be helpful in some of the scenarios mentioned above, We urge everyone using this device to caution and to share their feedback with us so we can make it better. As with any new device, the users may take some time getting used to auscultating with it. We look forward to working with interested physicians/ audio or software engineers to make this device even better. Please refer to How to section, for detailed instructions on how to set up your device. More details on the device can be found here.
