Medhard: Phonendo (electronic stethoscope)

2024: Start of serial production of electronic stethoscopes

Medhard, a resident of Skolkovo (ВЭБ.РФ Group), began mass production of the Phonendo electronic stethoscope after the completion of piloting development on the basis of one of the Moscow hospitals. This was announced to the medical portal Zdrav.Expert on February 26, 2024 by representatives of the Skolkovo Foundation. The solution is a completely Russian development, designed to listen to and amplify extremely weak body sounds that emanate from the heart and lungs, in real time with visual and audio control from the doctor.

source = "Medhard"

In addition to listening to the sounds of the lungs, heart and blood vessels, the Phonendo medical device allows you to record them and save them in the patient's electronic medical history. With the support of Skolkovo in 2022, the company received a registration certificate from Roszdravnadzor for the development of a risk class 2a medical device.

According to Medhard, Phonendo makes it possible to suppress external noise and amplify sound 60 times, so that specialists can receive clear and clear sound for accurate diagnostics. In addition, the stethoscope provides a "raw" sound that can be processed at the request of a doctor, and also uses artificial intelligence to analyze sound. This technology allows you to safely listen to patients with highly contagious diseases even in "red zones," the company emphasized.

At the same time, its innovation lies in the ability not only to listen to the patient's heart and lungs, but also to see sound synchronously in the form of audio and spectrograms, and all this is in real time, emphasized Victoria Valueva, General Director of Medhard.

"For example, a patient with cardiovascular pathology living in Tyumen wants to consult a cardiologist in Moscow. The doctor sees the patient, hears the sounds of his heart and can simultaneously follow the spectrogram of the heart rate. There is also a classic mode of face-to-face auscultation and independent recording of sound by the patient, "said the head of Medhard.

As noted in Medhard, the patented technology is already included in ten orders on the lists of equipment of medical organizations.

2022: Russia's first electronic stethoscope for telemedicine registered

In April 2022, the first electronic stethoscope for telemedicine surveillance was registered in Russia. We are talking about the Phonendo system developed by Medhard.

The electronic stethoscope is designed to auscultate and amplify weak body sounds emanating from the heart and lungs. Monitoring of the patient's health is carried out at a distance in real time with objective visual and audio control by the doctor, the device records and transmits sound for subsequent analysis. The developers report that the device can be used by both a doctor during an in-person examination and a patient at home.

The first electronic stethoscope for telemedicine in Russia has been registered

"The stethoscope opens up new opportunities in Russia for remote monitoring of patients and obtaining telemedicine consultations not only in the format of a medical consultation, but also during telemedicine consultations, a patient doctor online," said Victoria Valueva, co-founder of Medhard.

The company also added that the domestic device is not inferior in basic characteristics to foreign counterparts, and the cost of the product is significantly lower. At the same time, the manufacturer does not report the price of the product by April 2022. Roszdravnadzor issued a registration certificate to this electronic stethoscope.

Its developers attributed doctors and nurses to potential consumers of the device, including when diagnosing patients of the I-II pathogenicity group in the LPU.

According to forecasts of the research company Global Industry Analysts, the volume of the global stethoscope market by 2026 will reach $514.7 million against $431.2 million in 2022. Digital devices account for 15%, and this segment tends to grow, the researchers note.^[1]

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