Korion Health is a Pittsburgh based start-up led by Anna Li, an MD/PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. Korion’s goal is to build tools that enable patients to access health screenings from the comfort of their homes in an affordable and easily accessible way.
The Challenge or Community Need:
Heart disease is the number one cause of death worldwide, responsible for more deaths than cancer, stroke, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Heart disease does not discriminate based on sex. It is the number one cause of death in both men and women. Most deaths from heart disease can be prevented through early screenings and interventions.
To allow patients greater access to healthcare, Korion’s first at home screening tool is an affordable electronic stethoscope equipped with a vision-based guided interface. This interface ensures accurate heart and lung recordings by directing the patient to the correct placement on the body, allowing the patient to collect heart and lung function data to send to their doctor for analysis.
Impact Investment:
Dr. Alfred A. Kuehn Innovation Institute provided an impact seed investment to Korion Health, to assist Korion get FDA clearance. Once the FDA approves Korion’s at-home electronic stethoscope, it can reach its first patients and provide pediatric asthma management through Telehealth.
Outcomes & Impact:
The anticipated benefits of the Korion at-home electronic stethoscope, once FDA- approved, and in the market, include early detection of heart and lung issues, improved patient outcomes, reduced hospitalizations, and increased access to healthcare. It will enable continuous tracking of vital signs and other relevant parameters, allowing healthcare providers to monitor patients’ progress and intervene promptly when necessary.
Next Steps:
Korion intends to expand to more Telehealth applications, entering clinical trials to collect data using its stethoscope and developing machine learning-based diagnostics. Once Korion receives its second FDA approval, it will expand into the congestive heart failure market.