iPhone saves lives

iPhone app for heart monitoring

Over three million doctors have downloaded an iPhone application able to replace stethoscopes in UK hospitals. They have downloaded the $0.99 iStethoscope to be able to monitor the heart rates of their patients. Created by the researcher Peter Bentley at the University College London, this application was initially developed as a toy. But now, more than 500 daily users download the free version of the program, which experts say it has already saved human lives.

Diagrams with heart beatings on the fly

According to the creator, “smartphones are capable of saving lives, saving money and improving health care in a dramatic fashion.” He also hopes that in the future smartphones could become mobile vital sign monitors, “fully fledged integrated designs capable of taking ultra sound scanners or monitor a patient’s blood pressure.”
In order to get a heartbeat, the doctors have to press the microphone on the bottom of the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G(S) or iPhone 4 to the patients’ chest, directly on the skin. Then they shakes the phone to listen to the last eight register seconds and view a spectrogram and a desktop device o phonocardiograms. Diagrams can then be sent by e-mail to specialists.
The creator of the application also says that iPhone will be used in future medical techniques, including an ultrasound scanner or a mobile application capable of measuring blood oxygen levels, but this initiative has been stopped by the present regulations so far.