Potential for placing voice-activated devices to improve patient care in general practices as well as patients’ homes

I read with interest this real-world study that shows promise in which voice-activated devices such as Amazon’s ‘Alexa’ can be placed in patient’s homes.¹ Clearly Amazon will have performed extensive testing and had user input into its design and functionality given the sales success, with more than 100 million of these devices having been sold.² Beneficial first-hand user experience has been previously written about for people with health needs.³ It is remarkable to witness an individual with autism interact with a voice-activated device, a device that never loses patience. It has been suggested that individuals with autism can also benefit from voice-activated devices.⁴

Personally, I believe the potential does not just stop within patients’ homes but there is great potential for voice-activated devices to be used in primary care systems to improve data quality and coding in health care. Although clearly privacy concerns would need to be addressed, I believe these are not insurmountable.

To explore the primary care user acceptability I sent a national survey across Scotland to primary care teams in November and December 2019. This had 422 responses (GPs 170, practice managers 166, other 86). Of the overall responders, 41.7% (176) stated they would use a voice-activated device, 38.6% (163) stated they don’t know, and 19.7% (83) stated they would not.

I had thought that experience of using these devices would enhance acceptability; however, subgroup analysis revealed this was not the case. Results from those with self-declared experience of using a voice-activated device were as follows: 45% (116) would use, 37% (96) don’t know, and 18% (46) would not use. Results from those with no self-declared experience showed: that 37% (60) would use, 41% (67) don’t know, and 23% (37) would not use. Comparing percentages by performing a χ² test⁵ shows that none of these represent a statistically significant difference (would use P = 0.1049, don’t know P = 0.4111, would not use P = 0.2107).

I believe there is potential for placing voice-activated devices to improve patient care by not just placing these in patients’ homes but also in general practices.