PNWU: Teaching Auscultation with Real Sounds

Students at PNWU wanted a tool to help them learn clinical reasoning and auscultation skills. By combining Eko's digital stethoscopes, the Eko App, and live streaming, students were able to grasp the big picture of auscultation and screening better.

"Eko has been a helpful tool that allows us to broadcast live auscultation sounds to a large group of medical students to help them better grasp auscultation and its role in diagnostic reasoning."

Benjamin Wilson, MD
Assistant Professor Family Medicine

The Problem

Dr. Wilson is an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences (PNWU). She's responsible for teaching medical students clinical reasoning and auscultation skills. Combining digital stethoscopes with live streaming can help the class listen to live auscultations of a real patient in the classroom, and use what they are hearing in real-time to practice diagnostic reasoning.

The Solution

Eko Digital Stethoscopes combined with the Eko App and live streaming software were introduced to help power the academic curriculum.

• Eko can be used to teach students in large classrooms, small group settings such as bedside rounds, or remotely
• Students download the free Eko App to capture and save heart sound recordings
• Students can access live streaming auscultations from any device and operating system through a secure link
• Students listen with headphones to maintain high-quality heart sounds

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The Outcome

Utilizing Eko in the lecture hall, PNWU faculty feels like students grasp the big picture of auscultation and screening better. Live streams are more true-to-life compared to simulated heart sounds, so students can connect what they hear with where the stethoscope is placed and better grasp the diagnostic reasoning. Eko's software doesn't require students to have a subscription (populating in a PHI/PII protected web browser), a sustainable and repeatable solution for PNWU.