Amazon is seeking to deliver its Alexa gadgets into extra sufferers’ rooms, each in hospitals and assisted residing services. The corporate has struck partnerships with a number of giant healthcare corporations, together with Cedars-Sinai, Boston Kids’s Hospital and Atria Senior Residing.
Amazon is touting the gadgets as a straightforward manner for sufferers to speak with employees. For instance, nurses can “drop in” by means of the system to examine on a affected person, or senior residing residents can name in for help.
“One of many issues we like about Alexa voice know-how is that it lets our care crew save steps whereas holding them nearer to our sufferers,” Baycare Director of Innovation Craig Anderson mentioned in a weblog submit. “The affected person can merely ask Alexa for issues they want like a blanket or a glass of water. Alexa interprets all these requests and sends it to the correct individual.”
Amazon started piloting this idea with Cedars-Sinai in 2019, beginning with placing the gadgets in 100 hospital rooms. In the course of the preliminary months of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the ability to talk with sufferers with out having to enter their rooms grew to become extra pressing as hospitals and nursing houses confronted shortages of protecting gear.
Going ahead, Amazon is seeking to construct extra healthcare-specific options, equivalent to medicine monitoring.
For instance, Boston Kids’s Hospital, which is at the moment utilizing the gadgets for affected person leisure and to handle frequently-asked questions, is engaged on extra methods to make use of the voice know-how.
“Our sufferers will quickly be capable to specific their wants for issues like ache administration help – ‘Alexa, inform my nurse I’m in ache,’ or normal consolation – ‘Alexa, inform my nurse I would like a pillow,’” Timothy Driscoll, director of know-how technique at Boston Kids’s mentioned in a weblog submit. “Utilizing AI for the interpretation of affected person intent will allow the route of messages to the suitable useful resource utilizing real-time sensible routing to present hospital communication programs. In the end it will scale back the variety of steps taken to know and deal with affected person wants.”
For nursing houses, residents can name family and friends by means of the system, and make video calls. They’ll additionally get details about the day’s menu, or occasions of their neighborhood. A few of Amazon’s nursing house customers embrace nationwide chain Atria Senior Residing and Sacramento-based Eskaton.
Each Amazon’s options for hospitals and nursing houses are a part of its Alexa Good Properties section, which incorporates options for industrial customers, together with accommodations and workplace buildings.