By Melanie Evans
Amazon.com Inc. is positioning Alexa, its
artificial-intelligence assistant, to track consumers'
prescriptions and relay personal health information, in a bid to
insert the technology into everyday health care.
Seattle-based Amazon says Alexa can now transfer sensitive,
personal health information using software that meets
health-privacy requirements under federal law. Five companies,
including insurer Cigna Corp., diabetes-management company Livongo
Health Inc. and major hospital systems, said they developed new
Alexa features for consumers using the federal protocol. The
features let Alexa perform tasks such as scheduling urgent-care
appointments, tracking when drugs are shipped, checking
health-insurance benefits or reading blood-sugar results.
For developers of digital health services, the move opens an
avenue to expand the use of voice commands. Smart speakers have
proliferated rapidly since their 2014 introduction, with one in
five adults reporting they owned at least one in a 2018 national
survey by Edison Research and NPR.
But voice technology has been slow to take hold in health care
because of patient-privacy concerns. The Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, requires that
health-care companies and their contractors, like Alexa, take steps
to keep patient information confidential, prevent tampering and
ensure it can be accessed when needed. HIPAA violations can expose
health-care companies to penalties and criminal charges.
With the new health-care features, Amazon will be able to
further expand Alexa's offerings as it battles technology giants
with competing voice assistants, including Alphabet Inc.'s Google
Assistant and Apple Inc.'s Siri. Amazon's market share fell to
about 40% last year from 59% the previous year, according to
technology-focused, venture-capital firm Loup Ventures.
A spokeswoman for Google said its developers aren't allowed to
create features that transmit information protected under federal
privacy law. Apple declined to comment.
Health-care executives say they see promise in voice commands as
an easier alternative in some circumstances to typing or tapping a
screen.
"We were waiting for this level of privacy and security to be
complete because it's obviously critical," said Richard Roth, head
of strategic innovation for Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, one
of the nation's largest hospital systems. The system, which
operates 142 hospitals across 21 states, is developing its own
Alexa option for appointment scheduling, he said. It wasn't among
those unveiled last week.
Still, while health-care companies might be ready to connect
with consumers via voice, consumers might not be. Use of Alexa for
all but basic tasks has been slow to take off, raising questions
about whether new features will be used widely.
New York hospital system Northwell Health launched a service on
Alexa roughly two years ago that searches for wait times at local
emergency rooms and doesn't require HIPAA compliance. It isn't used
widely, said Emily Kagan, Northwell's vice president of digital and
innovation strategy. "It's been tepid," she said of demand.
That hasn't dimmed hopes for the use of voice, she said, and
younger adults are far more comfortable with the technology than
older generations. "Everybody feels like it is going to be really
game-changing," she said. "We're all still experimenting."
Alexa made headlines last year after mistakenly recording a
private conversation and sending it to someone else on a user's
contact list. The device picked up sounds it believed to be
commands, but weren't.
Amazon recommends that its Alexa health-care features verify the
identity of the speaker, either with a voice code or by requiring
users to log in with passwords for existing health-care accounts.
Developers of new features caution users in a disclaimer that their
information "may be available to anyone using your Alexa
devices."
Developers of Alexa's new health features include Livongo, Cigna
and its pharmacy-benefit manager Express Scripts, Providence St.
Joseph Health and Boston Children's Hospital. Each requires users
to verify their identity to initiate the feature, according to
Alexa product web pages and some of the companies.
Livongo worked to avoid possible confusion that might occur when
diabetic customers ask Alexa for blood-sugar readings, said the
company's chief product officer, Amar Kendale. Users must state
both words -- "blood" and "sugar" -- for a response, to prevent any
potential mixup caused by using the word "sugar" alone.
Parents of heart-surgery patients treated by Boston Children's
Hospital can use the hospital's new Alexa feature to report whether
their children are experiencing pain or diminished appetite after
surgery. The new feature will also offer appointment reminders.
"Voice is natural," said John Brownstein, the hospital's chief
innovation officer. Users don't need to download apps or review
tutorials to use speakers, he said.
Amazon and health-care providers will also collect some data to
improve voice recognition and track how consumers use the services.
Developers of new Alexa services said such data would be valuable
as they push to expand the use of voice in health care. Data will
be stripped of identifying information before being shared and
studied, some of the companies said.
The Alexa feature offered by Providence St. Joseph allows
consumers to book and cancel appointments at most of its express
clinics in Washington state.
The hospital system based in Renton, Wash., developed its
feature by asking users to test it and studying their reactions to
Alexa's replies, said Aaron Martin, the company's executive vice
president and chief digital officer. User data will help further
refine the technology, he said. "We're training it and it's
training us," Mr. Martin said.
Write to Melanie Evans at Melanie.Evans@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 07, 2019 16:48 ET (20:48 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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