The ASAP project: A first step to an auscultation's school creation

Abstract 

Objective

This paper describes an ambitious study of in the so-called ASAP project or “Analyse de Sons Auscultatoires et Pathologiques”.

Results

ASAP is a 3-year-long French collaborative project. It is part of a collaborative telemedicine platform called MERCURE or “ Mobile Et Réseau pour la Clinique, l'Urgence ou la Résidence Externe”. MERCURE deals with projects for remote monitoring or in clinical context thanks to modern tools principally coming from the News Technologies of Information and Communication. ASAP aims at making evolve the auscultation technics: by the development objective tools for the analyse of auscultation sounds: electronic stethoscopes paired with computing device; by the creation of an auscultation sounds' database in order to compare and identify the acoustical and visual signatures of the pathologies; and by the capitalisation of these new auscultation techniques around the creation of a teaching unit: « Ecole de l'Auscultation ». This auscultation's school will be destined to the initial and continuous formation of the medical attendants.

Conclusion

Previous studies demonstrate the need of performing an exhaustive scientific approach. It is precisely the context of the ASAP project.

Keywords: Auscultation, State of the art, Respiratory sounds, Sound analysis