More than half of all heart murmur referrals to pediatric cardiologists are for a Still’s murmur — a benign murmur that naturally occurs in 50 to 90 percent of children and goes away by adolescence.
Every year, pediatric cardiologists in the United States see 1.3 million children with Still’s murmurs. That adds up to over $400 million in consultation fees alone.
The cardiologist, in turn, may still be unsure whether the murmur is benign after listening to the child’s heart with a stethoscope. He or she might order a follow-up echocardiogram to be certain. If this happens just 10 percent of the time, that’s an additional $200 million in unnecessary costs incurred per year. On top of the financial burden on the healthcare system, the referrals and testing cause unnecessary anxiety for patients and families.
A mobile app in development by Raj Shekhar, MD, of Children’s National Health System and his team has the potential to significantly alleviate these burdens. The app, called StethAid, allows pediatricians to identify a Still’s murmur, thus establishing the child’s murmur as benign and eliminating the need for cardiac referral.
Read the full post on Vector: Mobile app lets doctors tell when a heart murmur is benign
The opinions expressed in this blog post are the author’s only and do not necessarily reflect those of MassDevice.com or its employees.
The post Teaching your smartphone to detect benign heart murmurs appeared first on MassDevice.
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