Nik Fuchs
A recent article from Fortune Magazine highlighted a new, ground-breaking use for the Amazon Echo. The increasingly popular smart-home device now has a new purpose in the healthcare industry, specifically at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. The hospital has launched a pilot program in which an Alexa-powered platform, called Aviva, can be used for a multitude of bedside assistance for patients, such as turning on the TV, calling for a nurse, or requesting specific medication – all completed with voice activation. Previously, nurses were needed for even menial tasks like turning on the TV, but with this new technology, nurses can focus their attention on more important tasks.
So how does it work? According to the announcement from Cedars-Sinai, once a patient makes a request “[it] is routed to the mobile phone of the appropriate caregiver, whether a nurse, clinical partner, manager or administrator. A pain medicine request would be routed to a registered nurse, for example, while a bathroom request would be routed to a clinical partner. If the request is not answered in a timely manner, the Aiva platform sends it up the chain of command.“
As other hospitals begin to adopt smart devices into their services, what are some risks they might need to consider before launching Alexa enabled solutions? Is this a good investment for hospitals to make? What other smart home devices might hospitals want to consider as well?
References
https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/cedars-sinai-taps-alexa-for-smart-hospital-room-pilot/
Hello Nikolaus, great post. Really innovative stuff. Wow. Good stuff. Wow. Some of the things hospitals may need to consider is exactly how accurate the voice recognition software on these smart devices are. If a patient is suffering from a condition that would lower and/or alter their voice, the hospital would not want to tell them to go to Alexa for their needs, only to find that it’s not working. However, assuming they perform strong error checking, I believe it would be a fantastic investment for health care providers to make. Another technology certain hospitals may want to implement is the Oculus Rift, or other VR devices, as they have been shown to be beneficial for rehabilitative purposes. Wow.
I can see a lot of value with hospitals being able to implement Alexa. If Alexa can be implemented with more hospitals, I can imagine this saving a lot of time for nurses and doctors. My only concern would be that Alexa is constantly listening and collecting data. With technology constantly growing this can open Alexa with many vulnerabilities in the future. I can imagine hackers being able to grab voice audio of PHI data, which will be a big vulnerability.
This is a great application of voice-enabled technology! However, I also agree with Davis that hospital IT department has a lot to think about the cyber risks that this implementation poses: a lack of encryption, lacking evidence capture and forensic logging capabilities, etc. As the advent of smart devices in the medical field is inevitable, hospitals can strengthen their security by requiring authentication, strong encryption, etc.