Do you use Siri, Alexa, Cortana or another voice recognition-based tool?
It’s amazing to realize how our interactions with computer systems have evolved over the years. Starting with cards and keyboards and moving on to touch and chat it has become easier and more intuitive to interact with systems. Voice recognition takes that to the next level especially when it comes to the OR or the ED.
Let’s explore.
Voice Recognition: the Next Frontier in Technology
The next frontier for the interface may well be voice. Although a number of implementations have sprung up over the last few years the one with arguably the most friendly API and ease of implementation is Amazon Alexa.
Voice Recognition in the OR or the ER
When we were discussing the Operating room scenarios with our clients there were several instances where the staff were required to interact with a screen or key board to enter in vital information about the procedures.
Or sometimes it was just status updates that would later help them track important timelines within the procedure such as when the first cut was made or when they start to close on a patient after a procedure.
The life of a ER nurse is similarly crammed with activity and spending time on busy computer screens is always more of a distraction when you have patients waiting for critically needed time sensitive care.
>> See What Is Operating Room Orchestration?
>> See Experience Emergency Room Orchestration
Enter Amazon Alexa
These kind of conversations first motivated us to test out the possibility of integration of Alexa or a similar system into our software. Although a number of voice recognition software solutions were available, there were no easy APIs that we could plug into our system. When we started looking at Alexa the methodology seemed to be pretty straight forward.
Cash strapped and always struggling to meet schedules, proof of concept projects like these are always challenging in a startup world. After a few discussions we thought it would be worthwhile to spend a few days exploring the Alexa interface.
Implementing the API
The implementation of the API turned out to be pretty simple. Alexa supports Node.js, Python and Java. Since we live and breathe java it was our choice of implementation. There were a few kinks like the APIs needed to be registered only in a specific US East zone of AWS. The Alexa triggers would not be visible on other zones. A few google searches later we were all configured to test out the hello world sample.
Proof of Concept in the ER
Once we got past the basic testing we started looking at the use cases that we wanted to be part of the proof of concept. Someone would want to locate a tag or they would want to locate a specific equipment. There could be more use cases in the future when a ER director may want to check out the load in the various sections of ER but once the basic structure is set it would be easy to setup the more involved cases.
Testing Out the Basics
A trip to frys later I was equipped with a Amazon Echo to test out the basics.
Amazon Alexa lets you setup a variety of prompts for a query. For example looking up a tag could be “Find tag {Tag}” “Locate tag {Tag}” “Can you find tag {Tag}”. We came up with close to thirty variations for these.
Once they were coded in we turned on the Echo and to our pleasant surprise we got a response from the system that the tags were in the Pre-Op zone.
Alexa comes with a app that shows the exact words Alexa heard and responded to. Sometimes Tag was heard as Tad. So we added cases like “Find tad {Tag}”. Once these were coded we had our end to end tests completed.
Just the Beginning of Voice Recognition in Hospitals
The more I play around with this the more I am convinced that this would be the favored means of interaction with computer systems. These are early days. There are a few kinks with security that are not built in, so they would need to be added by the developers.
>> See You are not crazy just because you talk to your fridge
>> See The Tagnos Touch: The Patient Experience Through IoT
>> See Using Voice to Improve Hospital Patient Flow
About TAGNOS
TAGNOS is the future of clinical automation software solutions with Artificial Intelligence. TAGNOS is the only platform offering predictive analytics utilizing machine learning and RTLS. This groundbreaking platform leverages historical patient data continuously and adjusts operational intelligence to provide sustainable improvement to both the patient experience and metrics.
TAGNOS provides clinical systems integration, customizable reporting, dashboards, alerts, critical communication with staff and family to improve turnaround times. TAGNOS supports patient flow, workflow orchestration, and asset management.
In the course of 13 months, hospitals see a 12.7% reduction in its overall cycle time – saving an average of 40 minutes from each case and over $1.6M per year – more than 11x the typical investment.
Note: We originally published this article on 08/05/2018, and have updated it.