Is your smartphone capable of listening to your heartbeat?

Not yet, according to reviewers of the €0.79 iPhone application that purportedly "allows you to listen to your heartbeat and see heart waveform" called iStethoscope pro.

Doctors may not be rushing to swap their stethoscopes for iPhones with iStethoscope Pro with over 300 downloaders agreeing the app is "worthless" and saying all they "can hear [is] a refund."

However the future holds promising apps for mHealth (mobile health) including an app that might make a smartphone a viable replacement for a stethoscope.

The first Hacking 4 Health event aims to promote innovation for new apps and tools with government-shared health data. The Hackathon takes place on September 11 in Palo Alto, California.

The e-patients and the mHealth movement are rapidly changing the way health care is administered with doctors tweeting, therapy sessions with the use of Skype and Flickr image sharing to determine emergency care. Take a look at what is in the works at Hacking 4 Health: http://h4h.healthtap.com/pages/ideas