Amazon’s voice-activated wireless speaker system Echo Dot will be used in a project to improve community housing care in the US.
Boston, Massachusetts-headquartered firm Orbita will deploy the service across community housing in California managed by Libertana Home Health.
The Echo Dots system houses Amazon’s AI assistant, Alexa and users will be able to ask Alexa any question they want. With the help of online search engine, Bing, Alexa will provide an answer.
For healthcare companies, the Echo hardware offers promise as a communication device between patient and doctor.
Patients can relay vital health details, like weight, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and even treatment side effects to their doctor at any time. In turn, doctors can relay instructions and medication reminders to their patients to increase adherence and compliance.
This kind of application is particularly useful for patients who are unable to, or find it difficult to, travel to see their doctor.
So far, Libertana has tested Orbita-powered Echo Dots with a small group of residents to help with vital data reporting and home-based care. Now, it will apply the technology to help with daily activity management, triage care needs and alignment of care delivery across a larger population.
Earlier this year, Orbita struck a deal with health technology company ERT to improve the way that data is captured in pharma and device-based clinical trials.
They are seeking to develop a voice-based solution capable of effectively gathering trial participant feedback.