Healthcare Sector to Provide Better Services with Smart Speaker Technology

As per new research, smart speakers generally used in living rooms are likely to assist physicians in hospital operating rooms. Google Home and Amazon Echo will allow conversational voice interface. Interventional radiology (IR) physicians can directly communicate with the patient to retrieve treatments without breaking sterile techniques. Findings of this research presented in the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 2019 Annual Scientific Meeting.

More Focus on Patients Health than Device Technicalities

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco developed a device-sizing application for the Google Home smart speaker. This application interprets questions asked by humans and then recommends precise sizing of medical devices. Use of smart speakers is likely to assists surgeons, as they face difficulty in accessing computers in the middle of the procedure.

Moreover, smart speaker technology assists in taking quicker and smarter decisions as per the patient’s need. Smart speakers will help in communicating accurate size required by IR physician implanting a stent in a patient’s blood vessel. It will assist them in taking a final call in these critical times.

Additionally, this technology helps physicians in concentrating more on patient care rather than getting into the detailing of device technicalities. Smart speakers included Dialogflow through natural languages processing that helped in extracting information of interest from an input query. Researches performed logic operations and other data processing by using a Python script deployed to the cloud.

Researchers are exploring further possibilities to expand its scope by including information on inventory databases and material costs. Easily accessibility of information will make treatments more cost-effective, efficient, and beneficial to patients.