News Item – What Will Health Care Look Like Once Smart Speakers Are Everywhere?

Voice-powered technologies such as Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and Cortana, are changing the way people shop, drive cars, and manage their homes. Studies have suggested that, by 2020, 50% of all searches will be conducted by voice and smart speakers are expected to reach 55% of U.S. households by 2022. It is no different for physicians. In a nationwide survey of pediatricians conducted by Boston Children’s Hospital (not yet published), 62% of respondents said they have used voice-assistant technology, and one-third own, and use, at least one “smart speaker.”

Simple voice-dictation software such as Dragon that is used to capture clinical notes in electronic medical records is now fairly common in clinical settings. But voice assistants can do much more — for example, quickly surfacing actionable information from medical records and offering it to clinical teams. Seeing the potential to improve health care, the Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator (IDHA) at Boston Children’s Hospital is piloting voice-assistant technologies and is finding physician receptivity to it to be greater than anticipated.

Full article at: Harvard Business Review