New iPhone app could replace stethoscope

LONDON - The standard equipment found with doctors, stethoscope, may soon be history as millions of doctors across the world are signing up for a free iphone app that can monitor heartbeat.

Peter Bentley of the University College London has invented the iStethoscope application, which monitors heartbeat through sensors in the phone.

As many as 500 apps are being downloaded everyday since a free version was introduced last week. Everybody is very excited about the potential of the adoption of mobile phone technology into the medical workplace, and rightly so,” the Telegraph quoted Bentley as saying.

“Smartphones are incredibly powerful devices packed full of sensors, cameras, high-quality microphones with amazing displays,” he added. (ANI)