Now that it’s upending the way you play music, cook, shop, hear the news and check the weather, the friendly voice emanating from your Amazon Alexa-enabled smart speaker is poised to wriggle its way into all things health care.
But a flood of new opportunities are emerging since Alexa won permission to use protected patient health records controlled under the U.S. privacy law known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act . University of Washington researchers recently published a study in which they taught Alexa and two other devices — an iPhone 5s and a Samsung Galaxy S4 — to listen for so-called agonal breathing, the distinct gasping sounds that are an early warning sign in about half of all cardiac arrests. These devices correctly identified agonal breathing in 97% of instances, while registering a false positive only 0.2% of the time.
“It opens possibilities to deliver care at a distance,” said Dr. Sandhya Pruthi, lead investigator for several breast cancer prevention trials at the Mayo Clinic, which has been on the front lines of using voice assistants in health care. “Think about people living in small towns who aren’t always getting access to care and knowing when to get health care,” she said.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles put Amazon devices loaded with a plug-in called Aiva into more than 100 rooms to connect patients with staff and to provide hands-free television controls. Unlike a static call button, the voice-controlled device can tell nurses why a patient needs help and can then tell the patient the status of their request.
It and other voice assistants might also help bring some relief to doctors and other medical practitioners who commonly complain that entering medical information into electronic health records is too time-consuming and detracts from effective interactions with patients.
KHNews Oh Hell NOOO!
KHNews What's happens though when Alexa causes the heart attack?
KHNews paulapoundstone waitwait pattonoswalt the 'slip off your spectacles' joke comes to reality. What could possibly go wrong? ('Oh, you want an answer. I thought you said cancer....')
KHNews Can Dr. Alexa address the insanity in the WH, pls?
KHNews before the invention of laptop webcams - - would it freak you out that your 1995 television set not only displayed pictures and videos, but it also functioned as a webcam? - you were being watched the whole time you turned your television set on
KHNews Alexa really wants you to give all your money to her!!! LOL
KHNews All while making you a cup of coffee.
KHNews AOL Matrix Truman Show - - devices like this have existed forever - - invisible to all the Trumans - - devices that also have 3D Stereoscopic 360 degree cameras - - there is a world that exists where everything is perfect - - can you accept being monitored constantly ?
KHNews Did you hear about Alexa listening in while you have sex? TMI girl...TMI.
KHNews Gee...... not putting too much faith in Alexa are ya? I won't even have one of those things in my house, don't need to give Amazon anymore of my life info.
KHNews A piece of plastic isn't very smart
KHNews Nope nope nope.
So now Amazon is afraid we will ditch Alexa from listening to us..and they have new appeal Anything for profit....ughh
KHNews Or SPY on AMERICANS!
KHNews No.... No it can't. It just wants to sell your info for companies and the government to use against you!
KHNews Good one, my Alexa is hard of hearing and can barley tell me what to get for dinner and bathe me.
KHNews And then, Alexa kills us.
KHNews This is Scary!!!
KHNews Someone gave me one of these things for Christmas (after my saying I didn't want to swap gifts anymore). It's still in the sealed box. Will never use....
KHNews uhhh okay i guess 🥴
KHNews People gotta gets these smart devices out of your house. You privacy is being taken away. Alexa listens to everything you say.