BPL Healthcare, a division of BPL Limited has launched an innovative cardiac anomaly indicator for physicians and specialists. Referred to as ViScope100, it gives an audio and visual display of heart's activity in real-time and helps physicians to screen cardiac abnormalities and diseases, such as valvular defects, Septal defects and murmurs.

According to the company, it is the first-of-its kind product in the world. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major international health problem, which accounts for more than 35 per cent of all deaths worldwide. Easier, early stage and affordable diagnosis are possible with the ViScope 100 due to its advanced and patented digital signal processing and imaging algorithms that detect cardiac abnormalities and displays them on a LCD screen. Clinically, this helps physicians plan the right investigations and treatment, thereby reducing patient healthcare costs.

With the ViScope100, different cardiac problems manifest as different waveform patterns. Some sound frequencies that become difficult to hear with age are very easily picked up and displayed on the LCD screen. This makes the device very useful for physicians and also in semi urban and rural areas such as primary health centres. During the recent camps in Tamil Nadu, doctors using ViScope picked up abnormalities that conventional stethoscopes did not detect. The ViScope results showed an excellent co-relation with Echocardiography results in recent studies at CMC, Vellore.

ViScope 100 empowers the hysician to diagnose with a greater degree of accuracy and efficiency", informed A.Vijay Simha, chief operating officer, BPL Healthcare.

ViScope 100 is aimed at efficient Point-Of-Care Diagnosis. This will augur positive impact on early diagnosis and preventive health, which is the need of the hour in healthcare of the masses, said Ajit Nambiar, chairman and managing director, BPL Ltd.

ViScope100 is palm held with a smart LCD display, battery operated and rechargeable like a mobile phone. It connects to a standard computer to record live heart sound waveforms. A patient report can be pulled out from a standard printer.

The ViScope 100 is priced at around Rs 32,000 and is available at all BPL offices across the country and their dealers.

BPL known for its ECG machine was the first among a long list of products that the company introduced in 1969. Since then, every medical professional has at some point in their practice used a BPL product. Over the years BPL continues to be recognized as the leader in the ECG and Defibrillator business. More than 1,00,000 installations stand testimony to BPL's focus in the Indian health care market, both in Private and Government sectors. Its 150 sales & service points ensures quick customer reach, response and effective Service back up nationally. The company is ISO13485 & ISO 9001 certified. The R&D facility is based out of Bangalore and the manufacturing facility is at Palakkad, Kerala. The current product portfolio includes ECG, Defibrillator, Patient Monitoring, Fetal Monitors & Dopplers, Colposcope, Ultrasound, Oxygen Concentrator, Nebulizer and Imaging.