3M™ Littmann® announced its 3M™ Littmann® CORE Digital Stethoscope received honorable mention accolades in the health category of the 2022 Fast Company World Changing Ideas global awards program recognizing companies, products and initiatives that support innovation for the public good and tackle social inequality, climate change and public health crises.
Currently available in 21 countries, the 3M Littmann CORE Digital Stethoscope is a first-of-its-kind smart stethoscope. Released in October 2020, it marries best-in-class 3M Littmann technology with advanced digital innovations from Eko, a digital health company advancing heart and lung disease detection. Benefits to clinicians include:
Sound amplification up to 40 times — at peak frequency versus analog — to help health care providers with different hearing abilities and identify hard to hear body noises.
Active noise cancellation to help reduce distracting background sounds for those working in noisy environments.
Easy one-button toggling between analog and digital amplification modes to suit the clinician’s listening needs. Also includes two tunable diaphragms — adult and pediatric – that allow users to listen for both high and low frequency sounds without repositioning the chest piece.
Visualization of sound data during auscultation. The ability to see the pathology is another tool to help clinicians with diagnoses.
HIPAA compliant means to save and annotate 15-, 30-, 60- or 120-second recordings in a secure dashboard. Also enables clinicians to create a library of heart sounds to monitor the progression of a disease, for education, or to securely share recordings with colleagues.
Analysis of heart sounds to aid in the detection of the presence of suspected heart murmurs in seconds with Eko’s FDA-cleared and clinically-proven AI algorithm.
“3M Littmann is a pioneer and proven leader in auscultation innovation and quality. The 3M Littmann CORE Digital Stethoscope is our most advanced stethoscope yet and we believe it will help the world tackle heart disease, one preventative screening at a time,” said Kristi Barnett, 3M medical devices senior director. “3M applies science to life. Our entire health care team is constantly exploring new and iterative technologies and partnerships that empower clinicians and improve patient outcomes worldwide and we are honored with this prestigious recognition from Fast Company,”
“The entire team at Eko is thrilled about this recognition from Fast Company,” said Connor Landgraf, co-founder and CEO of Eko, which was also recognized by Fast Company earlier this year among the ten most innovative health companies of 2022. “Our collaboration with 3M Littmann on the Littmann CORE Stethoscope has already put our heart disease screening technology into the hands of hundreds of thousands of clinicians globally, effectively screening over a million patients annually.”
Now in its sixth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 39 winners, 350 finalists, and more than 600 honorable mentions, with climate, social justice, and AI and data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of almost 3,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology, health, social justice, and more. The 2022 awards feature entries from across the globe, from Switzerland to Hong Kong to Australia.
“We are consistently inspired by the novelty and creativity that people are applying to society’s most pressing problems, from shelter to the climate crisis,” says David Lidsky, interim editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “Fast Company relishes its role in amplifying the important and innovative work being done to address big challenges. Our journalists have identified some of the most ingenious initiatives to launch since the start of 2021, and we can’t wait to see the positive mark they leave on their respective industries.”