Amazon Alexa Adds Health Advice With Boston Children’s Hospital App
Summary
“We’re looking forward to adding more important skills like this for our customers.” The KidsMD software taps into cloud-based content from BCH doctors, allowing parents to ask Alexa a variety of questions about common maladies.It’s part of a broader digital health push by BCH aimed at supporting in-house innovation and startups; forming more partnerships with outside tech companies, like IBM; and spreading the hospital’s expertise beyond its buildings in Boston.With the Amazon project, BCH’s initial focus is on “providing educational information on common pediatric symptoms and guidance for at-home treatment,” says Jared Hawkins, the accelerator’s director of informatics, in the press release.“However, in the future we envision Alexa-enabled devices being a central point for the public to verbally interact with all of the educational content developed at Boston Children’s Hospital.” The project also fits into bigger trends emerging in healthcare—the integration of digital tools, patients taking more proactive roles in their own care, and hospitals seeking ways to provide more value while lowering costs.“Families will increasingly look to perform front-line health care triage with diagnostic mobile apps and devices and decision support applications,” says Nitin Gujral, the accelerator’s software development manager, in the release.
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