LSU is the first college sports program to use AI-enabled digital stethoscopes for their student-athletes. Eko Health Commercial Vice President Joseph Authement says their CORE 500 digital stethoscopes are equipped with tech that sends heart sounds and electrical impulses to the cloud.
“We’re then able to use those [sounds and impulses] to build out different algorithms,” he explains. “And those algorithms that we’ve built out are all around early cardiac disease detection.”
Eko Health estimates their devices, which are FDA-approved, are used by more than 500,000 U.S. clinicians. That number now includes the Tigers’ athletic medical staff. Authement says the stethoscope is able to produce a reader showing potential cardiac diseases in around 15 seconds, including types of heart diseases that could otherwise go undiagnosed. He describes the stethoscope as a device that, “in a very short period of time, is able to flag for patients that have issues before those issues may progress.”
Authement, a Louisiana native, says the Tigers were chosen as the first college athletic program to use the stethoscopes in part because he had his time as an LSU swimmer cut short by a disease that he believes could have been detected and prevented.
“It’s just so near and dear to me to ensure that we do best by the community that I live in; that more people, including these student-athletes, are given access to the latest technology; and that we potentially prevent injuries or deaths,” he says. “And I think this technology can do that and then some.”
LSU Athletics will start using the stethoscopes for the 2024-2025 school year.
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