Remember when Google became a verb? Any time you had a question, someone would inevitably ask, “Did you Google it?” Google’s creation gave birth to a whole new era of information harvesting, bringing the entire world within seconds of finding out basically anything they needed (or wanted) to know.
Now the new kid on the block is voice technology, aka Siri, Alexa, and Cortana. Rather than type something into Google (how antiquated!), you just verbally get the attention of your device of choice and put it to work with a quick command. As this technology has become more mainstream and accessible, its applications are endless and its value to consumers is proven.
Many industries like food and beverage, retail, customer service, and others have already embraced and found great uses for voice technology. However, the healthcare industry is leading innovations for voice application. Silence the compliance and privacy alarms going off in your head. There have been huge strides made toward offering HIPPA-compliant voice and chatbot applications to users’ interactions with healthcare voice technology services.
If you’re in the healthcare space and are looking to implement some tech improvements in 2020 or just a curious patient, you might be interested to learn what is already happening in the healthcare industry.
What Voice Tech Means for Patients
“Anything that makes life easier” is par for the course when it comes to what consumers are expecting from companies. This same mentality is true for healthcare. Finding the time to call and go through the process of scheduling an appointment with your doctor is not high up on the fun list for most patients. Thanks to voice tech, scheduling an appointment may soon be something you can do simultaneously with other important tasks, like catching up on your inbox. With a few simple voice commands and information swaps with an AI program, you can have your yearly physical scheduled in between meetings.
Parents understand that illness strikes at any time with children, but unfortunately your child’s doctor is not always available. Developers have created AI applications that help guide you through different remedies for whatever is ailing your child, sometimes alleviating the need to go to the doctor’s office. Boston Children’s Hospital created a program called KidsMD which works through Alexa to educate parents on different illnesses or issues their child may currently be facing.
Those who are caregivers or senior adults living in a caregiving facility can greatly benefit from voice tech, as its hands-free operation makes it widely accessible to patients. There are apps available that help connect families or caregivers with a patient to ensure that care plans and medication schedules are being followed. There are also programs in production that will help encourage active lifestyles and healthy choices for senior adults.
What Voice Tech Means for Providers
Providers regularly have to deal with days booked solid with appointments and then hours of office time every week dedicated to charts and notes. Their goal is to provide the best care possible to their patients, but that level of care sometimes comes at the cost of their own wellbeing. Voice tech is being used in the creation of many innovative programs that will help cut down on the amount of time providers spend on paperwork and will allow them instead to focus more on their patients. Some programs in development will monitor conversations between a provider and patient, picking up on keywords and phrases that will then be translated into clinical notes for the provider to review.
Another AI-driven offering from a variety of companies is a program that helps keep patients on top of the care plans, while also keeping you and your team apprised of their progress and whether or not they need regular check-ins to keep on track. These programs will help dramatically reduce the amount of time dedicated to follow-ups, which will allow you and your team more time to focus elsewhere.
Whether you’re a healthcare provider or just an interested patient, it’s time to start keeping an eye on voice application. It’s making huge advancements every day, and advertising will become a big piece of the puzzle…of course!
If you would like to learn more about how AI or voice application might influence your advertising strategy,
contact the Marbury team today at group@marburycreativegroup.com to get started.
