A project funded by the Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC, which is headquartered at the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience) will help relieve the stress and anxiety (and cost) that parents face in the wake of discovering their child has a heart murmur.

Consider the scenario: During a routine exam, a pediatrician hears a heart murmur and refers the child to a cardiologist and an appointment is scheduled for a few days (or weeks) later. The parents are terrified, but put on their brave faces.

When the appointment finally arrives, the cardiologist listens and soon diagnoses a Still’s murmur, which is completely harmless. The parents finally exhale, and a potentially life-changing problem simply evaporates.

This scenario plays out more than a million times each year. Pediatricians don’t want to take a chance the murmur might be serious, and as a result, parents and older children face needless anxiety and the healthcare system wastes $650 million annually on unnecessary referrals.

The device being developed by AusculTech Dx is designed to be used by pediatricians to quickly diagnose Still’s murmurs, ultimately saving money and stress for patients and the healthcare system. Read the whole story here.

LINKS:

APDC

AusculTech Dx