Amazon’s Alexa now features a new healthcare skill that patients may employ in handling their prescription drugs and purchasing prescription refills.
At the beginning of this year, Amazon stated that it has made a HIPAA-eligible world for skill developers who include the needed precautions in compliance with the demands of the HIPAA Security and Privacy Laws. Amazon developed an invite-only system for a select number of skill developers to develop different skills that would help patients.
The new skill is a result of a joint venture of Amazon and Omnicell, a drug management company. Amazon got in touch with Omnicell and suggested to the firm to develop the new skill after seeing that a lot of Alexa users utilized their devices to make medication reminders. Amazon had acquired reviews from various users who wanted upgrades to be done to the reminders function to enable them to make a number of reminders per day for having their prescribed medicines.
For starters, the new Alexa functionality is going to be offered to users of the Giant Eagle pharmacy network, which runs around 200 pharmacies all over the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. Using the new skill, patients could put reminders for having their medicines, monitor their latest prescribed medicines, and purchase prescription refills from Giant Eagle just by sending the voice commands to their Alexa gadgets.
The new skill features an array of privacy and security defenses to stop unauthorized user access and wrong use. After permitting the Giant Eagle Pharmacy skill and connecting their account, users have to make a voice profile and assign a PIN. Alexa will approve a user based on their voice profile, nevertheless, it is necessary that they supply their PIN prior to communicating any data. Healthcare connected data is likewise obscured in the application to preserve privacy. Voice recordings are assessed and removed at any time using the Privacy Settings, Alexa app, or by providing voice commands upon authentication.
According to VP and general manager of Omnicell, Danny Sanchez, this fresh technology is merely the starting point, as we go on determining simple-to-use pharmacy functions that voice-powered gadgets could carry out in actuality to always have the patient in the middle of care and rationalize pharmacy workflow.
With the preliminary kick-off, Amazon will get invaluable data that may be utilized to better the customer experience. Even more pharmacy chains should be included in the New Year.