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Sneak Peek: The Algorithm That Will Change Pediatric Cardiac Screening

December 16, 2021 – It seems that Christmas came early at One Heart Health. Last week Matheus Araújo, a member of our technology team, successfully defended his thesis and is now Dr. Araújo, PhD! Congrats!

Matheus
One Heart Health Technology Team member, Dr. Matheus Araújo, PhD, is the voice and vision behind the algorithm demonstration video. Araújo is a native of Brazil and recently defended his PhD thesis.

Araújo gave One Heart Health an unexpected gift as well, a short video where he demonstrates how the One Heart Alert works.

That’s right! We now have video footage demonstrating how the algorithm developed by One Heart Health can “listen” to a patient’s heart sounds and detect a concerning murmur.

To give you a sense of why this technology is so remarkable, consider this: heart auscultation, listening to heart sounds to detect heart disease, is one of the least expensive and most accessible technologies for screening hearts. On the other hand, cardiac auscultation is a bit of a dying art. It is challenging for new doctors to gain the experienced ear needed to properly detect concerning heart murmurs through the aid of a stethoscope alone.

By creating an algorithm that can take the guesswork out of auscultation, we hope that our One Heart app will eventually mimic trained cardiologists in its accuracy. Equally important, auscultation is less expensive, complicated and more accessible than an echocardiogram, chest x-rays and/or catheterization to the world’s remote, rural or vulnerable children. (To learn more about the power of auscultation, aided by artificial intelligence, and how it relates to health equity, read our original article on Araújo’s work.)

When our algorithm is fully developed under Araujo’s supervision it will be the first automatic screening function for heart sounds that is scalable for worldwide use!

DONATE TODAY: In the video below, Araújo refers to the algorithm as the Chao Algorithm. An important primary stakeholder in this algorithm development, and its namesake, is the Ping & Amy Chao Family Foundation. If you would like to be a charitable donor-investor like the Chao Family, please consider contributing any amount to One Heart Health today.