An AI Stethoscope Found 3.5 Times More Heart Disease. Then 70% of Doctors Stopped Using It.

The largest trial of AI-assisted cardiac screening ever conducted just published its results in The Lancet. The technology worked. The doctors didn't. The TRICORDER trial — named with exactly the optimism you'd expect — gave AI-enabled stethoscopes to 96 NHS GP practices across northwest London. The devices, made by California startup Eko Health, use machine learning to detect heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and valve disease from the sound of a heartbeat. Over 12 months, 972 clinicians examined 12,725 patients with them. When doctors actually used the stethoscope, the results were striking. Patients were 2.3 times more likely to be diagnosed with heart failure. 3.5 times more likely to be caught with atrial fibrillation. Nearly twice as likely to receive a valve disease diagnosis. These are conditions that kill people when missed, and primary care misses them constantly. But the trial's primary endpoint — the number that matters for regulatory purposes — was negative. No statistic