Amazon’s Alexa is moving into hospitals. On Monday, the company announced that it will now support scaled launches of its devices inside both healthcare systems and senior living facilities.
“When the pandemic first changed all of our lives, we had a number of healthcare institutions reach out to us and ask if there was a way we could help with some of the challenges they were having, particularly related to shortage of personal protective equipment,” says Aaron Rubenson, VP of Amazon Alexa. That kicked off a roughly yearlong pilot of Amazon Alexa inside care facilities, such as hospitals. Doctors used Alexa’s intercom-like feature to communicate with patients without having to go into their rooms and to conduct check-ins. Using Alexa to conduct rounds meant nurses and doctors could more judiciously use protective gear when it was in short supply.
In hospitals, Rubenson says, the devices allows patients to send messages and requests to the nursing staff, rather than hitting the call button every time they need something. It also enables nurses and doctors to communicate with patients through its “Drop In” feature.
Hospitals can also build their own Alexa skills for their specific needs. For instance, the hospital may develop an Alexa skill for communicating discharge plans to a patient. Alternatively, the hospital might develop an Alexa skill for conducting digital rounds.
The privacy factor
Hospital stays are immensely sensitive events, and very private information is discussed in hospital rooms. That has implications for Alexa, especially given that all the processing necessary for the service happens on Amazon servers. In order to maintain patient privacy, hospital patients will not be able to contact family members using the Echo. “Amazon doesn’t have any personal information about either the resident or patient that’s using the service, to us its an anonymous user,” says Rubenson. “By design, this solution is anonymous just given the particular nature of these interactions.”
Alexa became HIPAA compliant in 2019. That same year, Bloomberg reported that Amazon workers were actively listening to samples of Alexa users’ audio in order to improve the service. Rubenson says that Amazon never stores audio from patients after it’s processed. Neither hospital staff nor property managers have access to audio recordings, though they do get an aggregated report of how patients and residents are using their devices.
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