The global speech recognition technology market will grow to $12 billion by 2022 and reach $26.15 billion by 2025, according to a MarketsandMarkets report. Today, voice technology is widely used in automotive, banking, marketing, telecommunications, healthcare, and other industries.

Healthcare organizations use natural language processing (NLP) to improve the quality of their services, streamline their workflows, and upgrade patient care.

For example, NLP solutions for healthcare can be used to recognize and structure medical records, scientific articles, medical records, sickness descriptions, clinical guidelines, and much more. This will significantly simplify access to medical information and improve the efficiency of healthcare institutions, hospitals, and medical centers.

Voice technologies can be used to recognize patient requests as well. For instance, a voice assistant can make an appointment and answer other common questions. This will allow the hospital or medical center to reduce the number of incoming calls at call centers and registries, save on operating costs, and increase the productivity of the medical staff who will get rid of routine work and administrative tasks. When the Paris-based Saint Joseph Hospital implemented voice recognition software, they began to receive the hospital records much faster.

The experts explain the popularity of voice services by the fact that speaking is more convenient than writing. On average, a person types 35-40 words per minute and speaks about 150 words. According to Statista, people will use 4.2 billion voice assistants worldwide in 2020. It is expected that their number will reach 8.4 billion by 2024. Just imagine that this is more than the world’s population!

Artificial intelligence, big data processing, and NLP are opening up new avenues for treatment and care. This is why big tech companies are actively investing in healthcare. Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple contributed $3.7 billion in this area in 2020. Of course, all these giants are engaged in the creation of smart voice assistants aimed at making our lives better and transforming the healthcare industry. Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, Facebook’s Portal, and Microsoft’s Cortana are great examples based on AI and NLP technologies.

In our article, we’d like to bring you 25 amazing facts about voice tech in healthcare.

1. 23% of American therapists use voice assistants in their professional activities.
2. Voice input technology allows doctors to dictate research protocols using a microphone and specially trained artificial intelligence algorithms. The system recognizes not only ordinary speech but also special medical terms and expressions that doctors use when filling out reports.
3. Voice input is 2.93 times faster than keyboard input. This allows doctors to save up to 1 hour and 10 minutes of working time every day.
4. Reaction Data revealed that two-thirds of doctors are applying speech recognition technology to maintain electronic health records.
5. Smart voice assistants can directly deal with patients. They record the conversation between the patient and the doctor, analyze it, and then enter the valuable information into the history cases. Doctors confirm that this turns out to be much more effective than writing down the patient’s words by hand.
6. Voice assistants can considerably reduce expenses on paperwork and administrative tasks.
7. Experts predict the market for virtual assistants in healthcare will reach $6 billion by 2026.
8. Triad Health AI uses Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa to treat Parkinson’s disease. Smart speakers help patients combine exercise with basic cognitive tests, such as repeating numbers or solving simple math equations.
9. British ambulances are equipped with Amazon’s Alexa speakers. They help paramedics quickly find information about a patient’s diseases and medications in order to save their lives. In addition, it can give reference information or recall the procedure steps.
10. Giant Eagle Pharmacy has integrated Amazon’s Alexa with its information system to remind patients to take certain medications at certain times. It can answer voice questions like « What medications should I take now? »
11. Alexa can be connected to some services, such as HealthTap and Ada, in order to advise users on what to do with certain symptoms. Integration with other services allows the column to interact with pharmacies, hospitals, and laboratories to find out the test results or make an appointment with a doctor.
12. AI-based voice assistants are especially helpful for radiologists who can quickly get the required information and prepare various reports.
13. Lenovo and Orbita engaged in the production of home medical systems partnered to create a home healthcare assistant. Their solution consists of a smart home speaker Lenovo Smart Assistant and a medical chatbot Orbita Voice.
14. Voice technologies are being used to create solutions for seniors who cannot use devices with touchscreens like smartphones or tablets. In 2017, Front Porch Center for Innovation conducted a pilot study among 50 patients of the assisted-care facility. People used Amazon’s Alexa installed on a variety of devices. The study found that the voice assistant helped patients get the information they needed and generally improved their quality of life.
15. There are a number of other apps for seniors. For example, Cuida Health helps seniors communicate with relatives and get access to the required information.
16. Reminder Rosie is software that reminds people of their medication schedule, appointments, and daily tasks.
17. There are a  number of voice assistants for doctors. For example, AI-based Merit.ai is capable of scheduling, rescheduling, and canceling patient visits.
18. Aiva’s voice bot allows patients to effectively communicate with medical institutions. The latters, in turn, have a chance to improve the workflows and become more productive.
19. Some developers offer solutions for people with speech and hearing problems. Ava was designed for the deaf and hard-of-hearing by showing them who is saying and what they are saying.
20. Israeli company Voiceitt developed voice recognition technology designed to understand non-standard speech.
21. Some companies are working on products that can measure the mental state and health of people by voice, its volume, frequency, rhythm, and tone. Such solutions are offered by WinterLight Labs, BeyondVerbal, Cogito, Sonde, Elinext, and others. Thus, the latter offers Hate-Speech Detector, which identifies inappropriate user-generated text, and Application For Sentiment Voice Analysis, which recognizes emotions in speech.
22. Almost 1 in 5 adults has a smart speaker today. It is expected that 50% of search queries will be made by voice in 2020.
23. Cedars-Sinai in California and Boston Children’s Hospital have already used Alexa in surgery units and patient rooms.
24. Israel-based Vocalis and Mayo Clinic joined forces in order to create a solution that will identify pulmonary hypertension based on patients’ voices.
25. Google Home is used by the facility for seniors with disabilities to allow them to perform some actions. For example, when they want to raise window blinds, they can simply say « good morning. »

Final Words

Healthcare is one of the industries where voice recognition technology can gain popularity. Doctors and nurses spend an enormous amount of time filling out electronic health records and other documents, which makes it difficult for them to pay due attention to patients. Voice assistants are able to take this burden off them, which will considerably increase their efficiency and improve the patient experience.

Developers offer solutions not only for medical personnel. Elderly patients and people with disabilities can also benefit from the use of voice assistants. Many services are already working and improving the quality of life of such patients, allowing them to perform various actions and receive the necessary information. The graphic below, which is based on the data provided by the Center for Digital Strategies, clearly shows how speech recognition technologies can be applied in healthcare.

Voice-based solutions have already firmly taken their place in our world and are not going to give up their positions. If you have any ideas for developing such software for healthcare, don’t hesitate to share them with us. Elinext specialists will help you bring them to life in the shortest possible time.