Eko Health equips LSU’s sports medicine team with CORE 500 digital stethoscopes and AI algorithms to improve detection of heart disease during athlete physicals

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana. and SAN FRANCISCO, 8 August 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Eco Healtha pioneer in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) for early detection of heart and lung disease, LSU Athletics and Our Lady of the Lake Health are joining forces to LSU’s Heart health and prevention programs for elite athletes.

Eko Health equips LSU’s World-class sports medicine team with Ekos FDA-approved CORE 500 digital stethoscopes and associated software platform, including FDA-approved AI algorithms to detect atrial fibrillation and heart murmurs, which often indicate structural heart disease.

With this donation, LSU Athletics becomes the first collegiate athletic program to use Eko Health’s cutting-edge medical devices and AI algorithms to care for student-athletes. Healthcare providers at Our Lady of the Lake Health, LSU Athletics’ Championship Health Partner, will use the AI-enhanced digital stethoscopes during physical exams to treat student-athletes’ concerns and as an important preventative tool for heart health.

“Our commitment to providing clinically excellent care for our student athletes means we use only the latest, most cutting-edge technology to help them perform at their best,” said Micky CollinsAssociate Athletic Director and Director of Sports Medicine for LSU Athletics. “Detecting potential cardiac issues early is essential to ensuring participants can compete safely and is emblematic of our commitment to our core values. We are incredibly grateful to the team at Eko Health for their generous donation and look forward to utilizing their technology across our entire sports medicine team.”

Commercial Vice President of Eko Health Joseph Authement is a former student and athlete on the LSU swim team who knows firsthand the power of preventative medicine.

“Medical innovation has evolved since my time at LSUespecially since AI is changing the rules of the game in preventive medicine. Although it had nothing to do with the heart, LSU swimming career was cut short due to pre-existing conditions that might have been detected earlier with the technology available today,” said Authement. “As an enthusiastic LSU Fan and Louisiana As a Native American, I am honored to represent a technology that has the potential to help save the lives of student-athletes in the future.”

Eko Health devices are used by more than 500,000 US physicians and each of its AI algorithms has been tested in multiple published clinical studies to identify heart problems with a high degree of sensitivity and specificity.

“The early detection of cardiac arrhythmias and heart murmurs is incredibly important for everyone – but especially LSU Student athletes who constantly push their bodies to peak performance,” said Kelechi AkamiroMD, CAQSM, sports medicine physician at Our Lady of the Lake Health. “As sports medicine physicians for LSU Athletics, we are highly trained to use traditional stethoscopes to identify signs of these conditions during routine exams, but these new digital technologies help us identify any irregularities or problems with even greater precision.”

Starting this summer, Eko Health devices will be integrated into LSU’s sports medicine residency exams, ahead of the 2024-2025 academic year. For more information on Eko’s devices and software, visit www.ekohealth.com.

About Eko Health
Eko Health is a leading digital health company that advances the detection and monitoring of heart and lung diseases by healthcare professionals with its portfolio of digital stethoscopes, patient and provider software, and AI-powered analytics. Its FDA-cleared platform, used by over 500,000 healthcare professionals worldwide, enables them to detect earlier and more accurately, diagnose more confidently, treat effectively, and ultimately provide the best possible care for their patients. Eko Health is headquartered in Emeryville, Californiawith more than 165 million US dollars in funding from ARTIS Ventures, DigiTx Partners, Double Point Ventures, EDBI, Highland Capital Partners, LG Technology Ventures, Mayo Clinic, Morningside Technology Ventures Limited, NTTVC, Questa Capital and others.

About Our Lady of the Lake Health
Our Lady of the Lake Health is a nonprofit Catholic health ministry based in Baton Rouge, Louisianawhich has been dedicated to serving the capital region and building a healthy community through excellent patient care and education for 100 years. With more than 7,500 employees, a 900-bed Regional Medical Center, its own 99-bed children’s hospital, a 78-bed hospital in Gonzales, Louisianatwo freestanding emergency departments in remote communities and a physician group of over 650 physicians, Our Lady of the Lake Health provides comprehensive health care services for general to complex conditions. Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center is a primary teaching site for graduate medical programs in partnership with LSU and is recognized in the areas of cardiovascular medicine, trauma and emergency care, stroke, cancer treatment, minimally invasive procedures and more. Our Lady of the Lake is part of the Franciscan Missionaries of Notre Dame Health System and is dedicated to serving all of God’s people, especially those most in need. For more information, visit ololrmc.com.

Media contact:
Sam Moore
(email protected)

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