Artificial-intelligence assistant meets privacy rules, giving device a potential daily role with patients
Amazon.com Inc. is positioning Alexa, its artificial-intelligence assistant, to track consumers' prescriptions and relay personal health information, in an effort to insert the technology into everyday health care. Amazon, based in Seattle, recently explained that 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 stated they "developed new Alexa features for consumers using the federal protocol". These new features allow Alexa to perform tasks such as scheduling urgent-care appointments, tracking when medication is shipped, checking health-insurance benefits or reading blood-sugar results. The recent move is an avenue to expand the use of voice commands for developers of digital health services. Since their introduction in 2014, the smart speaker market has significantly grown, "with one in five adults reporting they owned at least one in 2018", per a national survey by Edison Research and NPR. Voice technology has not been a favorite in health care, due to patient-privacy concerns. To combat any issues, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), requires all health-care companies and their contractors, like Alexa, to take steps in order to keep patient information confidential and to ensure that it can be accessed when needed to prevent tampering. Any HIPAA violations can expose health-care companies to criminal charges and penalties. Since the introduction, consumers have been measured in their willingness to use Alexa for all but the basic tasks, which has raised questions about whether the new features will be used widely. With the new health-care features, Amazon will now be able to further expand Alexa's offerings as it begins to battle with competitors, such as Alphabet Inc.'s Google Assistant and Apple Inc.'s Siri. Last year, Amazon's smart speaker market share "fell to about 40%" from the previous year of "59%", according to technology-focused venture-capital firm Loup Ventures. Recently, a spokeswoman for Google said "the company's developers aren't allowed to create features that transmit information protected under federal privacy law". Health care executives say they see promise in voice commands as an easier alternative to typing or tapping a screen, in some circumstances. Richard Roth, head of strategic innovation for Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, explained privacy and security is still being waited on for completion, but that "the system, which operates 142 hospitals across 21 states, is developing its own Alexa option for appointment scheduling". However, it has become more clear that while health-care companies might be ready to connect with consumers via voice, consumers might not be. "New York hospital system Northwell Health launched a service on Alexa roughly two years ago that searches for weight times at local emergency rooms and doesn't require HIPAA compliance". Although it has been found that the software is not used widely, the hopes for the use of voice has not diminished, as younger adults are far more comfortable with the software than older generations. Last year, Alexa made headlines after mistakenly recording a private conversation and sending it to someone else on a user's contact list. To avoid such issues again, 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 with 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 of those institutions require users to verify their identity to initiate the feature. So far, these features have proven to be very beneficial. Parents of heart-surgery patients treated by Boston Children's Hospital can use this new Alexa feature to report whether their children are experiencing any pain or diminished appetite after surgery. Furthermore, 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 new technology still has some bugs that need to be worked out and corrected, however, with the collection of data to improve voice recognition and to track how consumers use the services, developers of Alexa can push towards expanding the use of voice in the health care industry.
This article relates to the marketing concept by explaining the steps Amazon and Alexa developers are taking to make this new software successful. By explaining the different health care providers and insurance companies that currently use the Alexa software, Amazon's external marketing environment has been presented. From there, the article touched base on how Alexa developers have created new features to differentiate the software from its competitors. Not to mention, with that, it became evident that such competitors do exist in such a market. Lastly, with the addition of the new features and updates to the software, Amazon further expanded its target market, as it is more user friendly. With that, customers/consumers were taken into consideration and the developers of Alexa made sure that such customers/consumers would reuse the software, as ease was provided to users, as well as the ability of users to view vital information, such as pain experienced by their children.
I chose this article because I feel that it is important for everybody to know about the continuously updated technology in not only society as a whole, but especially in the medical field. That is one market that is constantly experiencing updates in technology and seeing as how it is also a market in which we all participate in, it is essential for us to be educated in its new offerings. As a Amazon Prime member, as well as a follower of Amazon, I experienced no hesitation in choosing this article. Amazon is a very successful company already, however, with the additions it is making to the medical field, its future is more than bright, and I believe it has not even begun to experience the success that is to come.
Link:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-clears-path-for-alexas-use-as-health-service-11554669234
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