What You Should Know:
– Vocera announced a collaboration with Amazon to deliver Vocera skill for Alexa. This HIPAA-compliant solution provides an easy, personal, and direct way for hospitalized patients and aged care residents to connect with their caregivers and more.
– Through the hands-free Vocera skill, Alexa clarifies the nature of patient requests, establishes urgency, and updates the patient on the status of the care team’s response in a personalized, conversational manner. Vocera skill for Alexa provides verbal updates to patients about the status of each request.
Vocera Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VCRA), a leader in clinical communication and workflow solutions, announced it collaborated with Amazon to build a Vocera skill for Alexa. The skill leverages a set of technologies from Alexa Smart Properties and will be HIPAA-eligible for healthcare customers.
Vocera Skill for Alexa Advances Care Communication
The Vocera skill for Alexa will expand the Vocera ecosystem to provide a hands-free and immersive voice experience to patients and families. The new Vocera skill for Alexa is designed to make it easier and faster for patients and families to get information about their stay and reach the right care team members with simple voice requests spoken to an Amazon Echo in the patient’s room. The intelligent solution is also designed to reduce unnecessary interruptions to the care team and minimize cognitive overload among clinicians.
How It Works
The Vocera skill for Alexa will advance the patient experience offered in hospitals and health systems. Patient requests will be delivered to the appropriate team member on their device of choice, including the Vocera Badge, Smartbadge, or Vina smartphone application. The Vocera skill for Alexa will recognize keywords and phrases and use Vocera Engage software to determine the appropriate person to receive the message, thereby reducing interruptions and streamlining workflow.
Verbal updates to patients about the status of each request will help put patients at ease, knowing their requests are heard and being resolved. Common questions from patients that do not need clinical intervention, such as visitor hours, will be answered automatically through the Vocera skill. Patient requests for assistance will be prioritized for relevance, automatically escalated as needed, and delivered with contextual information to team members who are available and can take action, improving response times and patient care.
“We believe the intuitive and accessible nature of voice and Alexa has the potential to help and delight customers in many scenarios, in and outside of the home,” said Liron Torres, Head of Alexa Smart Properties, Amazon. “We’re excited to work with Vocera and extend the voice experiences customers already love to healthcare systems, and give care providers new ways to save time and personalize care for their patients.”
