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Company History & Background

In 2013, Suman Mulumudi was 14 years old when he began working on a device to improve the 200-year-old stethoscope as part of a high school project. He was inspired to work on this idea, after his father, cardiologist Mahesh Mulumudi, told him about the difficulties of hearing and diagnosing heart problems using a standard stethoscope.

During early research, Suman came across a prototype for an electronic stethoscope developed in the ’80s. The device was wheeled around on a cart and used computers to visualize the patient’s heartbeat sound. Impressed by the concept of visualization, Suman wanted to see if he could produce the same capability on a mobile phone.

Using a 3-D Printer, various prototypes were developed. These devices were integrated into a phone case. When an iPhone was placed into the case, Suman could detect a patient’s heartbeat clearly with the iPhone’s high-fidelity microphone

In May 2014, Suman was even featured on the Jimmy Fallon show demonstrating the Stethoscope and checking Jimmy’s heartbeat. That same month the company won the WTIA’s First Look competition. In 2015, the Company raised its first round of funding. They started working on how to produce high-quality devices at scale and began the FDA approval process to market the Steth IO as a medical device to physicians. Many further iterations of both the hardware and the software followed. In addition, the company was issued several patents.

With FDA approval granted and core members added to the team, the Steth IO device was commercially launched in April 2018.

Technology Explained

Traditional stethoscopes allow healthcare providers to listen to heart and lung sounds but leave much of the analysis to subjective variability and its inherent inaccuracies. Spot, by Steth IO, is a simple, scalable remote cardiopulmonary monitors that connect to any mobile device to easily collect heart and lung sounds. Analysis of the digital recording by Spot will enable health care providers to easily identify both the regular and abnormal heart sounds present. The visual presentation of the heart sounds brings greatly enhanced accuracy to the diagnostic capabilities of the healthcare professional.

When Spot, if an abnormal hear sound is present, it can be diagnosed with higher accuracy and objectivity by visually viewing both its intensity and placement during the cardiac cycle. Diagnosing a patient using both audio and visual information in tandem greatly increases a healthcare professional’s level of accuracy, which cannot be achieved with the use of a traditional stethoscope. This ability to identify abnormal heart sounds more precisely can reduce the number of unnecessary expensive echocardiograms performed for the evaluation of suspected abnormalities.

A failing heart tends to generate a third heart sound, also known as an S3. The ability to identify the third heart sound using audio alone is extremely difficult, even for highly experienced physicians. With the heart sound visualization that is made possible with Spot, physicians can simply and confidently diagnosis third heart sounds.

Telemedicine

The healthcare consumer can use the Spot to identify irregularity in their heart rhythm by visualizing and hearing heart sounds on their smartphone. A patient can record and transmit their heart sounds to their healthcare provider for further diagnosis and treatment. Additionally, analysis by Spot could make possible on-site diagnosis, removing the need for physicians during preliminary diagnosis. Coupled with the increasing availability of smartphones in remote areas and the developing world, the Spot brings advanced diagnostic capabilities to patients without access to a trained cardiologist. This allows resources to be focused on those patients who most need it, helping make healthcare more accessible across the globe.

  • FOR HEALTHCARE CONSUMERS

    Monitor heart sounds for irregularity and transmit heart sounds to physician for diagnosis.

  • FOR HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATORS

    Reduce unnecessary echocardiograms. Reduce unnecessary hospital admissions for heart failure reducing overall healthcare costs.

  • FOR TEACHING INSTITUTIONS

    Clearly demonstrate abnormal heart sounds visually. Excellent teaching aid for medical students

  • GLOBAL HEALTH AND TELEMEDICIN

    Affordable technology and on-site diagnosis

Understanding the SPOTApp

TheSpot app provides an ability to assess and remotely examine patients during clinical care. Telemedicine should be more than an audio-video call. Spot will enable your team to collect patients’ symptom questionnaires, heart sounds, lung sounds, and clinically relevant images enabling medical providers to collect, examine, collaborate, and coordinate care. Collaboration during medical care of complex patients is critical to deliver effective and efficient clinical care. This functionality is not optimal in the existing healthcare solutions.

We created an innovative solution to provide telehealth for episodic care and remote physiological monitoring for the management of patient with chronic conditions. Using our app, healthcare institutions can enroll administrative and clinical members who in turn can enroll patients into the system and utilize the central repository of securely collected clinical information during clinical care. Spot will enable your healthcare team members to monitor patients’ vital signs like blood pressure, temperature, pulse oximeter readings.

This allows physicians to hear the heart and lung sounds providing innovative technology to examine patients remotely during virtual visits. The system can collect clinical images of skin rashes, leg swelling or any other clinically relevant images. It also allows healthcare institutions to interact with their patients on an Audio Video call and conduct asynchronous clinical examinations making a virtual health visit complete. Once enrolled into the Spot system, your team members can interact with patient data and collaborate to deliver an efficient care. Patients can upload their information to the secure Spot web portal and your team members can access the information.

Management & Staff Bios

Mahesh Mulumudi

President, CEO, and Co-Founder

Dr. Mahesh Mulumudi, MD, is an inventor, interventional cardiologist and a thought leader in the field of cardiology, with academic and patent publications to his credit. He is the President, Chief Executive Officer, and a co-founder of StratoScientific, Inc. He received his cardiology and interventional cardiology training at the Ochsner Clinic, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is currently a practicing interventional cardiologist. He provides clinical relevance for the Steth IO’s development.

Craig Rosenberg

CTO

Dr. Craig Rosenberg is the Chief Technical Officer of StratoScientific, Inc. He has over 25 years of experience working with a wide array of technology companies from small technology startups to Fortune 100 companies in the areas of human factors, software architecture and engineering, systems engineering, modeling and simulation, virtual environments, and advanced user interface design within the aerospace, mobile, communications, healthcare, consumer, legal, and entertainment markets. Craig has published over twenty research papers in scientific journals and in his free time enjoys tennis, racquetball, skiing, and composing and recording music.

Suman Mulumudi

Founder

Suman invented the Steth IO in 2013 and led StratoScientific during its early development, bringing the Steth IO through FDA clearance and to manufacturability. He now provides strategic insight for the company and promotes a relentless attention to detail. He is currently studying at Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science pursuing a degree in Computer Science, and in his free time enjoys biking, rock-climbing, and playing bassoon.

Avani Vimawala, MHA

Director of Operations

Ms. Vimawala is the Director of Operations at Steth IO. She manages the Quality Management System related to quality control of hardware and software, Customer Experience and FDA compliance documentation. She is involved in coordination of manufacturing and delivery processes and manages the Inventory. She also helps in developing new avenues for the company.

Ray Miller

R&D Engineer

Ray is a software developer at Steth IO. His career has focused on digital audio and embedded development, along with UI for remote devices. He has two degrees in Applied Math from the University of Washington, and two audio filtering patents. He has studied machine learning and has interests in optimization and numerical analysis. His other interests include climate change, gadgetry, walking, and hiking.

Chris Rudd

Marketing

Chris Rudd, has over 20 years of experience in business development, consulting, marketing and advertising multiple industries, Chris thrives on focused strategies that deliver inquiries, opportunities, and sales. Chris’ background also includes extensive work in interactive marketing, including web management, web optimization and paid search. Chris enjoys tennis as well as attending musical theatre shows (often that involve his daughters).

Noteworthy News Coverage

Founder/Developer featured in Huffington Post
Huffington Post
Featured on Jimmy Fallon
Jimmy Fallon

PRESS CONTACT INFORMATION

Chris Rudd

Marketing

chris@stethio.com

814-882-6433 (mobile)