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In this episode, Teri welcomes Dr. Gabriel Charbonneau, a family physician (Family medicine specialist) in Stevensville, MT.
Dr. Charbonneau comes on to share his experience in using voice technology at his practice and specifically the voice assistant called Saykara. SayKara’s goal is to free physicians from the mountains of paperwork that await them at the end of each day. They use their own speech recognition model and AI, to tackle the issue of clinicians being in a room and having to chart their notes on a computer while they are interacting with their patient.
That AI-powered healthcare virtual assistant that simplifies the documentation process is actually called Saykara or Kara. Saykara listens to the interaction between a physician/clinician and their patient, and then transcribes the audio recording into the EHR.
Key Points From Dr. Charbonneau!
His experience using Saykara in his medical practice.The huge role SayKara is playing in preventing physician fatigue and burn out.Background
He experienced burnout right out of residency and it led him into researching whether there were tools that could help take the edge off of some of the electronic charting (EHR) they were doing, which was very slow back then.He experimented with Dragon Assistant although it was not elegant.He was competitive with his partner at the practice when it came to building tools to make EHR easier, and that included building skills. They then came up with a way to make the process of treating patients easier using Dragon and Macro Recorder.They even taught other people to use the system and also built voice commands for other physicians.When he got tired of being a travelling consultant, he started a software startup and built a prototype add-on macro tool that could be used to take multiple steps in an EHR and make them into one step. The business didn’t do very well, but he still uses the tool and there are other physicians who use it too.He finds the intersection of technology and medicine very interesting.He was introduced to Tenor, a company that builds digital medical assistants to help clinicians provide better care, be more efficient and make better decisions, and served there as a physician advisor. That's where he developed a huge interest in AI and voice AI.Tenor eventually went out business so he decided to focus more on what he could do to solve the issue of physician burnout. He started by creating a T-Shirt with the words, “Fight Burnout”, and his work was noticed by people at SayKara, which led to them working together.He helped bring a SayKara pilot project to Montana and has been working with the company ever since.Using SayKara
Before using SayKara, his office work environment was very optimized because he already had the tools he was using. He didn’t think SayKara would make any difference for him, but when he started with the pilot project, he was amazed by just how much more it streamlined things at his practice.SayKara is a mobile iOS app he uses on his phone and it always has his patient list for the day on there.He selects the patient he wants to see before going in to see them, and then walks in and requests the patient for permission to use the AI assistant in recording their conversation. So far, no patient has objected to it.He then turns it into listening mode which enables the assistant to listen to the conversation. It captures all the audio, but one still has to give it occasional commands to get it to do things. The wake word is “Hey Kara” or “Okay Kara”The technology is evolving towards a fully autonomous solution that will listen to whole conversations and work on everything without any human editing to produce accurate transcripts.He basically uses SayKara like an Alexa in the exam room because he talks to it with voice commands and he doesn’t have to speak any punctuation because it’s very natural and intuitive.He’s very excited that he is helping make SayKara better with the feedback he provides from using the solution.He realized that previously, with Dragon, it took a lot of mental effort to proof read things, but SayKara has some editing and quality control that it does in the background to make sure whatever someone says comes out right.Quality Control
SayKara has people who proofread the transcripts that the AI generates and they send the transcript over to Dr. Gabe to sign off on them.SayKara is incredibly accurate so he doesn’t have to spend much time reviewing the transcripts.Initially, SayKara’s turnaround time was not so good because it would take up to 24 hours to get a transcript, but the turnaround is now around 10 to 20 minutes.The Impact
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected his practice (Rural primary care) since it’s operates within a fee for service business model. Therefore, diverting people away from the clinic due to the pandemic negatively affected his bottom line.He has been doing more telemedicine to cope with the changes.He recently had a 20 patient day and was done on the notes by 5.30pm, with an hour off for lunch time in between, and all that was made possible by SayKara.The technology plays a huge role in preventing physician fatigue and burn out.Unlike the EHR, physicians don’t have to keep using SayKara if they don’t like it.Links and Resources in this Episode
SayKara’s WebsiteDr. Gabe Charbonneau on Twitterwww.FightBurnOut.orgThe Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseVoice Technology in Healthcare Bookwww.TheVoiceDen.comHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Eric Sauvé, the Chief of Product and User Experience at Speebly.
Eric has been a serial entrepreneur for years and has started and built numerous startups, some of which were acquired by larger companies. He developed an interest in voice technology somewhere along the journey and ended up co-founding Speebly, a voice assistant program that can be used across multiple platforms.
Key Points From Eric!
How they are using voice technology (Siri) and the Apple Watch to help with handwashing during the current Covid-19 pandemic.Focusing on Siri
Their initial inspiration was using Siri. The fact that Siri gives users a bunch of web results when she can’t answer a question gave him the idea of creating a seamless hand-off from Siri to the different web properties.That would mean that a user could continue searching using their voice.They have also worked with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, but their focus on Siri was informed by the fact that Siri has way more users.Inspiration Behind Speebly
Their inspiration is based on the fact that when people are doing anything, they will either want to type or use their voice, and voice is, of course, the best option especially where there is a lot of text input.Siri is a closed ecosystem compared to Alexa and Google on the speaker side of things, but it has a ton of users and an app environment of third-party developers. This is why they focus more on Siri.Their main aim is to make it so that anyone who has an app can take advantage of voice search to drive traffic to their app or so that there can be a seamless handoff where a user asks Siri a question and they can keep talking to the app on their phone.They released a software development toolkit (SDK) that app developers can put in their iPhone or Android projects to serve as the talking interface of their app.The toolkit is also available for Apple watch OS and people can use it without their phones.Helping With the Pandemic
They have been aiming at helping people understand that they could use voice in the context of smartphones and the Apple watch.They’ve been working on an in-house app called Handwash Circles to encourage people to not only wash their hands but wash them long enough.It’s a touch-less voice first hand wash timer. A user can say, “Hey Siri, start handwash” and the app will start a countdown timer for the appropriate amount of seconds that one is supposed to wash their hands.They plan on implementing accelerometer and gyroscope features where the app can determine if someone has done a good job washing their hands.The community feature of the app enables circles of people, for example, a person’s workplace to access data on their handwashing activities.Studies have shown that there is an improvement in the quality of hand washing where people have devices on them to monitor their hand washing. They ensure people’s data privacy in different ways.They are currently in the process of onboarding their first 10 organizations that are interested in implementing the use of the app at their workplaces.People can also sign up to be beta testers.Links and Resources in this Episode
www.Speebly.com/circleThe Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseVoice Technology in Healthcare Bookwww.TheVoiceDen.comHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Heather Utzig, the Co-Founder and CEO at Pragmatic Voice, a tech innovation company that combines big data, analytics, tech & creativity to drive businesses.
Heather has an extensive background in healthcare having worked for companies like Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly & Co with her efforts focused on the rapid growth of their sales and sales teams. She was responsible for managing over 130 field sales and sales managers in the area of Brain Health and Sleep efficacy. Her team won the most awards for sales success. She was awarded the Summit Award for outstanding leadership. She has also been a successful entrepreneur and has helped a lot of people launch businesses in catering, construction, healthcare, etc. She has owned and sold successful businesses, and worked with several technological platforms and implementation projects with companies over the past 10 years.
Key Points From Heather!
The voice applications they have been developing at Pragmatic Voice, specifically the ones geared towards helping surgeons keep track of instruments in the operating room and so much more.Her Introduction Into Voice
She was developing a technology with one of her companies and she had requested voice to be developed for it because it was around medical instrumentation in general (they worked with medical instrument service providers and were looking at how to prevent infections through the touching of the instruments so voice would ensure that a lot of the processes were hands-free and mobile).In the process of having that voice application developed, she met her co-founder and learned a lot about voice from him.What They’re Doing In The Healthcare Space
From her healthcare background, she has always considered how voice can be applied to solve the problems in healthcare.The fact that there is a lot of human connection in healthcare, especially when it comes to doctor-patient interactions, makes voice very crucial in ensuring that there’s more effectiveness in the delivery of healthcare.Pragmatic works with healthcare companies, facilities, and even physicians to help them place their applications into voice, and advice them on how that is related to HIPAA (privacy) and other areas. They have developed several voice applications in relation to that.One of those applications is Instrument Voice which works inside a hospital, surgery center, or doctor’s office where there is instrumentation that needs to either be repaired, maintained, sterilized, or logged.Anyone working with the instruments within a healthcare setting can look at an instrument’s history, ask questions, pull out manuals, see videos, and even request repairs through the voice app. Pragmatic is streamlining that whole process to make it easier for the healthcare providers.They also have Instrument Wiki, an application that enables doctors, hospitals, and manufacturers to collaborate on information to help each other out in working with their instruments and assets in the hospital.The applications are built on Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, with their own proprietary open-source database technology.Most hospitals have had a problem in unifying their biomed and sterilization departments, and Pragmatic’s applications, because of their ease of use, can help in bringing a couple of departments in the hospitals together to work in an easier way.Their Presence
They have been working with some hospitals in New York and they are working on refining several things with plans to go to full scale market in the next month.Links and Resources in this Episode
Pragmatic Voice WebsiteInstrument VoiceThe Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseVoice Technology in Healthcare Bookwww.TheVoiceDen.comHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Ilana Meir, a voice designer and mentor in the voice technology space.
Ilana is a conversational interface designer and is one of the leading experts in Voice User Interface (VUI) design specifically at the intersection of voice technology and health. Using her immense knowledge and experience, she thinks critically about the future of voice design in ways only few industry experts do, and she encourages her students to do the same. Ilana was a chapter contributor to the recently released book, Voice Technology in Healthcare.
Key Points From Ilana!
Her expertise in Voice User Interface (VUI) design and some of the tips she can share.How to design a great voice experience.Getting Into Voice Design
She came into the field of voice design from a prior background in the fields of anthropology, psychology and marketing.During her period in marketing she wanted so badly to make the transition into product design but she found herself falling into voice design which blended perfectly with her background in strategic communications, her creative thinking and her vocal ability in singing.Ilana thinks the landscape of voice design is gradually shifting in relation to how it used to be historically.Voice design is now attracting a variety of people from different fields such as interaction design.Importance of Voice User Interface Design
She considers design as the last mile logistics, and in regards to that, she feels that it helps in organization and ensuring everything is in perfect condition for patients.The Voice Design Framework
Her thoughts on the first step into getting into voice design is doing the correct research and having the perfect understanding of the stakeholder’s side and patients side.In terms of the stakeholder’s side, thinking about their customer base, knowing how they are trying to forge relationships with their patients, the legal considerations, understanding the kind of technology available and understanding the downstream effects that might come along the way are key.On the patients side you need to understand how they are receiving this interaction so you can package it perfectly, think about the patient’s day to day interaction so you can know who’s affected.When it comes to voice design in healthcare, one has to think about it as a strategic communication. With every strategic initiative, a lot of efforts and meetings are put into them, and so the same should be applied when designing a voice experience.Best Practices in Designing for the Patient
She advocates for the creation of a culture of participatory medicine which is achieved by creating a dynamic set up where patients and doctors are equal partners in healthcare delivery.How a computer system will communicate with patients is the second consideration, and the focus should be on questions and other things.When it comes to building rapport with patients, one of the main goals should be to mitigate the presumptions a patient might have regarding the healthcare system.A conversational system should be designed to keep interactions with patients brief, precise, and informative.Links and Resources in this Episode
Ilana on LinkedinThe Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseVoice Technology in Healthcare Bookwww.TheVoiceDen.comHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Dr. Bob Kolock, a retired physician, executive, and active Amazon Alexa skills developer.
Dr. Bob Kolock has over 35 years of experience in healthcare delivery. Since retirement, he has had the opportunity to spend more time on things that really interest him. That led him to begin learning JavaScript and the Amazon Alexa development process. To date, he has 5 Alexa Skills certified by Amazon. He is currently working on 2 more and one of the two is very much aligned with his healthcare career. It’s focused on improving the transition of care of patients who have undergone a medical procedure. He will be looking for partners to make this Alexa Skill a routine way to deliver post-procedure care instructions in health care delivery systems.
Key Points from Dr. Kolock!
Becoming an extremely prolific Alexa skills developer after retirement from the healthcare space.The healthcare oriented suite of skills that he’s developing.Getting in Voice Technology
He retired 6 years ago and he had had an idea to build a smartphone tool to help manage foods in the pantry or refrigerator so someone could identify them before they got spoiled. He therefore started learning iOS, Android, JavaScript, and how to create an Alexa skill.His first skill was Food Manager and he initially thought that a bar code scan would give the necessary information in as far as expiration dates were concerned, but they didn’t, so he had to find another way to import the information.His Skills So Far
He has created a variety of 18 Alexa skills, 3 of which are revised, and a number of them have to do with healthcare and behavior change. They also relate to the website that he built to function with his database.One of his most popular skills is called Our Little Secret, and the concept behind it is that a brother or sister gives the user secrets based on what they hear around the user’s house. This plays on the privacy concern but the secrets are fictitious and are meant to be funny.Another one is Wine Jester where the idea is to hold a glass of wine to the smart speaker and it will say what the taste, fragrance, and components of the wine are.Healthcare Skills
One of his first healthcare skills was Blood Pressure Check, and it’s based on the American Heart Association guidelines. The user tells the skill what their blood pressure reading is and the skill gives them feedback as to where that blood pressure might fall.Another one is My Weigh Loss Coach that helps users track their weight loss goals, and gives them positive or negative feedback based on their results.On his website, one can set up text messages to themselves to help with behavior change, and hence he has a skill called Healthy Text Scheduler that sends users scheduled healthy eating texts.The other one is Track My Dose, which helps people manage the medication they’re supposed to take on an as-needed basis.He also has Kindness Counts, a skill that was inspired by all the negativity that’s been in the world. It helps people focus on the good things that are happening around us.He also has two other skills that are geared towards helping physicians become more efficient so they can deliver care to more patients, and also help patients with their follow up care after a medical procedure.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseVoice Technology in Healthcare Bookwww.TheVoiceDen.comDr. Kolock’s email - [email protected] ManagerOur Little SecretWine JesterBlood Pressure CheckMy Weigh Loss CoachHealthy Text SchedulerTrack My DoseKindness CountsHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Israel Krush, the CEO and Co-Founder at Hyro, a voice platform that allows enterprises to easily add voice capabilities to their websites and mobile apps.
Israel is based in Israel, and is a former elite intelligence officer in the Israeli Defense Forces. He studied Computer Science and Statistics, has a background in machine learning. He previously worked as a software engineer for Intel and various startup companies. His company Hyro allows customers to have two-way conversations to simplify their access to relevant information. Starting with healthcare, the software enables organizations to better engage with their existing customers and reduce the cost of customer support.
Key Points from Israel!
What they’re doing in the voice technology and conversational AI space taking data from various places and serving it up via their AI technology for people to incorporate into their websites, businesses, and other entities.The interesting work they’re doing to help with the COVID-19 pandemic.What Hyro Does
It’s a plug and play conversational AI platform for healthcare providers.The company is focused on both voice and text as long as it’s natural language.They target enterprises and organizations that have massive amounts of data that is hard to navigate.The most important aspect of their solution is the plug and play.While researching the voice assistant and chatbot market, they learned that a lot of the existing solutions are based on a creation platform.Hyro gives their users a creation platform where they can define their intents and build their workflows or conversational flows. They discovered that there was a lot of friction in the deployment and maintenance of their platform for users, so they decided to look for a plug and play approach. One of the main valuable use cases of their solution for healthcare providers has been helping patients find a physician when they need one. They find a physician based on various attributes of the physician.Another use case is in helping patients find the services that a healthcare provider offers.The patients and other users can interact through various modes and devices. Most traffic comes from mobile devices through typing (texting).Helping Battle COVID-19
When the pandemic started, they gathered in conference rooms in all their locations to discuss how they could help with the situation because they knew that patients would have multiple questions regarding the Coronavirus.Based on their technology, they scrapped the certified resources that have answers for questions around COVID-19. They specifically scrapped the WHO and CDC websites, and then constructed a knowledge graph about the virus and released a free chatbot that is also addressing issues around the virus. The chatbot answers frequently asked questions about the virus and gives people a risk assessment based on a short dialogue with a user about their age, where they’re based, whether they’ve interacted with a COVID-19 patient, and other things.Feedback From Users
Hyro doesn’t offer a one-fits-all solution. Every healthcare provider has their own unique needs, data sources, and how they handle their patients.With the COVID-19 solution, some healthcare providers have provided additional resources about the virus like their own FAQ webpages.Healthcare providers saw a need for a conversational solution to help patients in getting relevant information. They therefore felt Hyro’s solutions made sense.The Rise of Telemedicine
People are adopting telemedicine more and more because it has become clear that the old way of healthcare is gone and patients are more willing to use telemedicine.They see the same adoption in the conversational aspect of their solution. Patients are constantly asking how they can schedule a virtual appointment.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseVoice Technology in Healthcare BookHyro WebsiteHyro on Linkedinwww.TheVoiceDen.comHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Dave Kemp, a thought leader in the intersection between voice first technology and hearables.
Dave is part of a company called Oak Tree Products and they provide medical supplies and devices to the hearing technology industry. He also has a blog called FuturEar.co where he documents the rapid technological breakthroughs that are occurring in the hearables niche, including biometric sensors and voice assistants that are being incorporated into the hearable devices.
Key Points from Dave!
How he became an expert in hearables and voice technology.The content that he wrote in a chapter of the book, Voice Technology in Healthcare.Concrete examples of case scenarios where voice technology can be used to make a difference in people’s lives.Voice Technology and Hearables: The Origin Story
The first time he was introduced to voice technology was at one of the first Alexa Conference events. He had gone there because he was researching what would happen with hearables due to that fact that hearing aids were becoming Bluetooth enabled.In 2015/2016, all the hearing aids that were coming to market were Bluetooth enabled and so he started thinking about the app economy and what else could be done technology wise in the hearing aid arena.The person who got him interested in voice technology was Brian Roemmelle when he came across his content on Twitter and read it.Brian talked about voice technology as something that would simplify everything back to the basics such that a four-year-old could communicate with the technology just as a 95-year-old could. That’s what gave Dave the aha moment, and he started to see the potential of smart speakers.He realized that if smart speakers continued to proliferate and people continued to increasingly depend on them for more and more things, then people would probably want that type of functionality on their person. He saw the Bluetooth enabled hearing aids as a potential tech to fulfill that.Voice Technology in Healthcare Book
Dave wrote a chapter in the book about hearables and how they're becoming enabled. He started by talking about the technical side of it and progressively wrote about how they would impact the end users.There’s been the development of consumer grade devices that have the type of technology that legitimizes them as medical grade wearables and hearables. An example is the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch series 4 even has an ECG monitor.There will be a number of applications and environments where that technology will be applied but Dave is more focused on how the everyday person could build a longitudinal health data set (this refers to how someone can collect data about their health a few times a year through a wearable)He talked a lot about how the devices work through PPG sensors, which are the optical based sensors that are increasingly being placed into different wearable devices, for example, on the underside of an Apple watch.The sensors don’t really capture new things and the machine learning algorithms that are layered on top of them are the ones that create new insights by detecting patterns. Dave talked all about that in the chapter from a data collection standpoint.He also wrote about how voice technology could be layered on top of that. He dived into how that would be impactful to end users, caregivers, and all different types of stakeholders.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseVoice Technology in Healthcare Bookwww.FutureEar.coFuture Ear Radio PodcastHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri shares a recording of his recent webinar where Brian Roemmele spoke about some of his ideas and visions for what our world is going to look like using voice technology after the current Coronavirus pandemic.
Brian is the man that actually came up with the term “Voice First” and he’s often referred to as the Oracle of Voice and the Modern Day Thomas Edison. He is a scientist, researcher, analyst, connector, thinker, and doer. Over the long winding arc of his career, Brian has built and run payments and tech businesses, worked in media, including the promotion of top musicians, and explored a variety of other subjects along the way.
He actively shares his findings and observations across fora like Forbes, Huffington Post, Newsweek, Slate, Business Insider, Daily Mail, Inc, Gizmodo, Medium, Quora (An exclusive Quora top writer for: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013), Twitter (quoted and published), Around the Coin (earliest cryptocurrency podcast), Breaking Banks Radio and This Week In Voice on VoiceFirst.FM that surfaces everything from Bitcoin to Voice Commerce.
Key Points from Brian!
Where he sees voice making the biggest impact in times like these with the Coronavirus pandemic.How voice technology will change healthcare and life in general as we know it for the better.Brian’s Predictions On The Future Impact Of Voice
We are going to see a redesign of public interaction surfaces (like over the air hand gestures) and more things interacting with voice.Our devices will also become an interface actuated by voice or touch to open doors, choose locations and elevators, open car doors, and a number of similar things, because people will be galvanized with the thought that there could be some dangerous virus years after the Coronavirus.He recently studied a lot of information about the 1918 pandemic and he was able to dive into the mindset of what happened after the pandemic to determine what changed in society. He was able to come up with some of the similarities between that pandemic and the current pandemic, and determine just how society today will change after the Coronavirus pandemic is over.One of the discoveries that were made after the 1918 pandemic was that copper surfaces had an immediate response in devitalizing or deactivating viruses.Certain minerals and metals also devitalize viruses and bacteria through something called Contact Kill which has been widely known for hundreds of years. People in Sumerian times were actually using silver and copper utensils, which some people saw as a sign of wealth, when in reality the utensils actually killed viruses and bacteria, and made their food more presentable.Brian feels that hospital surfaces and beds should have a copper alloy coding to safeguard against viruses and other pathogens.He thinks that there will need to be a way to diagnose people through voice, and how he sees that happening is through different bio-sensors that will be put on a person when they walk into a hospital and start diagnosing them before a medical attendant gets to see them.He insists that that those biosensor devices must not be on the internet in any way so that they’re never compromised. Those devices will be tuned to a user’s personality, outlook, goals, motivations, and they will notice changes in someone’s sleep patterns, and other things that serve as an early warning system.Brian has looked at several studies on Coronaviruses and realized that there are several early warning systems like sleep pattern disturbances, digestive pattern disturbances, change in temperature, change in heart rate variability, change in blink rate, and other things.There are a number of signs of any virus within a human body, and one of those things is a change in someone’s temperature gradient. If one has a voice first device on them, it can be notified of their change in temperature and take the necessary action.The Catalyst to Overhaul Medicine
The Coronavirus pandemic will be the catalyst to overhaul medicine and Brian highlights the fact that times of crisis are the only times in history that anything changes.He predicts the hospital room and points of contact will change because of the amount of attention we have put on the Coronavirus.He highlights the importance of self-sufficiency within countries in order to ensure that people don’t find themselves in the same kind of trouble they’re in right now with the Coronavirus pandemic, and he feels voice first technology will be a great start towards that.Monitoring People’s Vital Signs to Predict Pandemics
Brian says with proper human telemetry, a physician can figure out the health of a person.There are other signs people can use to determine if someone has a virus or whether they are ill.He actually has a voice first AI with cameras that can determine that someone presents like they’re sick.He highlights the fact that if people’s health could be monitored electronically, then we would have an early warning sign of an oncoming pandemic. People are not very good observers of their own health conditions and even with the current healthcare systems no one is ever really sure whether a diagnosis is exact, but with a system of telemetry, we can have accurate diagnosis.It all boils down to being able to collect tons of data that is voice first. A great scenario would be someone asking their voice first device how they are doing, and the device would tell them exactly what their health is like.The Roaring 20s That Will Come Out Of The Current Pandemic
Society will be re-organized and there’s going to be more telecommuting.Companies will not need to have a lot of their employees going back to their work stations because they will see a need for them to work from their homes as long as they can do their work. Technology is going to inform that.With properly designed voice devices for the corporate environment, work mates will be able to easily communicate with each other from their different locations.Brian walked into one of his companies in the early 2000s, asked most of the employees to go work from home, and productivity exploded as a result.Before the 1918/1919 pandemic, the average person was not interested in the telephone and the radio, but after the pandemic, they were very interested in both technologies because they were technologies that connected people through strong and meaningful communication.He predicts that as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic there will be a release of productivity, creativity, and socialization. He feels voice technology will lead the way in that.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula Coursewww.VoiceFirst.ExpertBrian Roemmele on TwitterBrian Roemmele on QuoraBrian on LinkedinHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Can Voice First Technology Help with Pandemics?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Dr. Randall Williams, the Co-Founder of WellSaid, to talk about the work they are doing to help people age in place with a skill called “My Day”
Dr. Williams is a serial digital health technology entrepreneur, physician, founder and CEO. He supports C-suite executives, investors, and boards seeking to refine and implement scalable and engaging healthcare products and go-to-market strategies. He is also a trusted adviser who brings a unique breadth of healthcare market experience and understanding, ranging from reimbursement policy, market strategy, technology development, and executive development.
WellSaid connects seniors to Alexa for their healthy independence and so that their loved ones can have peace of mind. Through their MyDay skill, they support healthier behaviors, connects seniors to loved ones and bridges the digital divide for a fuller and happier life.
Key Points from Dr. Williams!
The aging in place Alexa skills that he is producing to apply voice technology to the challenges of staying healthy, active, and independent as one gets older.The role patients should be taking as the users of the healthcare system versus how much of the responsibility is on the administrators and healthcare providers.Background
He trained as a cardiologist (Heart failure and transplant specialist).Being in healthcare, he saw some of the failings of the healthcare system and how people with chronic diseases really fell through the cracks and lacked the systems and support they needed to stay healthy and out of the hospital.They built a program that provided resources in both a hospital setting and home setting to help people and also stay on top of where the patients were having challenges.They got into voice technology and created an app (interactive voice response) that allowed heart failure patients to report in every morning on how they were feeling and how they were doing.That enabled them to prevent 50% to 60% of hospitalizations in that group of people. That led to an opportunity to look into other chronic diseases and see if the model could apply elsewhere.Between 2000 and 2004 they got the opportunity to commercialize their technology and form their first startup.At some point he had to give up his clinical practice to focus on voice technology.How WellSaid Came About
As they were growing their initial company (Pharos Innovations), they started to hear about and see voice assistant technologies starting to emerge.They saw an opportunity in incorporating the voice technology into their platform as another interface.They had a challenge with the fact that smart speakers at the time were not set up for HIPAA Compliance. They also had a disadvantage in the fact that they were often at an arm’s length from the users of their technology.They therefore made the decision to venture into the “Aging in Place” industry and started another company from Pharos. And that’s how WellSaid was created.Their goal was to use voice technology with the older adult population to help them stay healthy, active, and independent.They created a prototype and tested it out with 50 seniors which taught them a lot that helped them improve on the technology.All About MyDay
It promotes healthy and independent aging.It links seniors with their family, friends and caregivers through daily interactions.Seniors use a smart speaker to go through a daily program that looks at and assesses seven different dimensions of well-being that are known to create challenges to their independence like cognitive decline, nutrition status, mobility, and others.Within the program, a senior can learn each day more about those areas, get coaching, or go through exercises or other interventions to help strengthen different areas of their well-being.As a result of all that information, the seniors and their loved ones can understand where there may be risks and vulnerabilities, and where they may need additional support.The back-end of the product is a companion app that allows family members to pair with a senior. The senior gives permission for their data to be shared with others so their loved ones can track how they’re doing.Better Every Day Flash Briefing
It focuses on seniors and has the goal of helping inform, educate, equip and inspire them to stay on top of active healthy aging.Administration of Healthcare Vs Proactivity in Personal Care
While the healthcare system is great at taking care of patients when they are in healthcare facilities, they do a poor job of helping equip people to stay healthy outside of the healthcare facilities.Dr. Williams and his team aim at supporting consumers who bear the problem of not staying independent.Voice in healthcare technologies are already emerging as HIPAA compliant and many people are taking advantage of that.The Uniqueness of WellSaid/MyDay
Their technology leverages their expertise around the aging population from an ethnographic understanding where they have interacted with hundreds of thousands of seniors. Over 10,000 seniors have so far interacted with WellSaid/MyDay.They are learning very rapidly by leveraging existing technology platforms to bring the competencies of implementation as well as the competencies of implementation, content development, and aging expertise.Other companies in the same space have just chosen to just create devices or their own unique versions of smart speaker software.They also have some continuous learning and optimization advantages with their platform.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseBetter Every Day Flash BriefingMyDay WebsiteDr. Williams’ EmailDr. Williams on LinkedinHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri will give us a preview of the Voice Technology in Healthcare book that he co-wrote with David Metcalf (PhD), Sandhya Pruthi (MD), and Harry Pappas.
Teri has made a compilation of a number of different people who contributed to the book which will be officially launched at HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society), a major medical information conference which will take place in Orlando, Florida on March 10th 2020. The book brings together the expertise of 32 thought leaders in different areas at the intersection of voice technology and healthcare.
Key Points!
The Voice Technology in Healthcare book and how it can be useful to all of us.How the book covers a cross section of the voice technology industry; where the industry is at today, a history of it, what is available right now, and its future.The Voice Technology in Healthcare book
It’s divided into four main sections. Section one is made up of four different chapters and they serve as an introduction to voice technology. They cover some of the key concepts of voice technology in healthcare. The chapters include:Chapter 1
This was written by Teri and includes an overview of why voice is such an important concept when it comes to healthcare and technology. Teri shares why he feels voice will transform healthcare and become the next operating system (Voice Operating System).Chapter 2
It was written by Ilana Meir who has spoken at different voice events. She is the world’s most foremost expert on Voice User Interface design (VUI), and how it applies to healthcare. This will help in the design of voice applications because VUI is critical.Chapter 3
It was written by Audrey Arbeeny, the founder and CEO of Audiobrain. The chapter is titled, “The Science Behind Sonic Branding: How Audio Can Create Better Patient, Caregiver, and Healthcare Provider Outcomes.” She discussed her 25 years’ experience working in healthcare, how the brain processes music and sound, and why sound is the perfect tool for communicating, helping to heal, and promoting wellness. She discusses some of the projects her company has worked on, the history of the voice industry, and where it’s headed in the future.Chapter 4
It was written by Nathan Treloar from Orbita and it’s titled, “Secure Voice”.Section 2
This one has seven chapters which look at voice technology and the patient experience. The authors of these chapters are mostly people who have had experience with creating voice applications and how they impact patients. The chapters include:Chapter 5
It’s titled, “Automated Virtual Caregiving Using Voice First Services: Proactive, Personalized, Holistic, 24/7, and Affordable” It was written by Stuart Patterson from Lifepod.Chapter 6
This is about voice and wearables and was written by Dave Kemp.Chapter 7
This was written by Rupal Patel and it’s about synthetic voices for healthcare applications. Rupal has been doing some amazing work looking at how people can create voices for brands, but also for the medical field where a voice can be created for someone who is losing their voice.Chapter 8 & 9
These include edited versions of podcast interviews that took place in Voice First Health Podcast. Teri wanted to incorporate the interviews in the book to bring a real personal aspect to the narratives that readers will be reading in the book.Chapter 8 is titled, “Voice First Health Interview: An Diabetes Care Plan” This was with Anne Weiler who actually won an award for her diabetes Alexa skill.Chapter 9 is titled, “Voice First Health Interview: Alexa Skills for Pediatrics” This interview was with Devin Nadar speaking about some of her experiences with creating skills specifically for kids.Chapter 10
This one was written by Robin Christopherson, and it’s called “The Rapid Rise of Voice Technology and its Awesome Power to Empower” It’s all about accessibility and he wrote about how the Echo and voice first technology more broadly represents a fantastic opportunity for people with people with disabilities.Chapter 11
It’s titled, “An Overview of Voice Technology and Healthcare” and it’s by a team of authors from Macadamian Technologies.Section 3
It’s titled, “Voice Technology and the Provider Experience” and it’s all about what the healthcare provider is experiencing with voice technology.Chapter 12
It’s titled, “Mayo Clinic: Patient Centered, Innovation Driven” and it’s written by a team at the Mayo Clinic, including Dr. Sandhya Pruthi who is one of the cover authors of the book.Chapter 13
This is another Voice First Health interview titled, “Voice Technology for Behavioral Changes” where Teri talked to Dr. Matthew Cybulsky about how we can use voice technology to really influence positive behavioral changes with the hope of positive health outcomes.Chapter 14
It’s called “The Laws of Voice” and is written by two lawyers, Heather Deixler and Bianca Phillips.Chapter 15
This one is based on a Voice First Health Podcast interview, and is called “Medical Documentation in the Voice First Era” It features Dr. Harjinder Sandhu from Saykara and he talks about medical documentation through voice.Chapter 16
It’s written by Yaa Kumah-Crystal and Dan Albert from Vanderbilt University and they are looking at creating a voice enabled EMR (V-EVA). They discuss the considerations for designing a voice user interface like Siri or Alexa, to help doctors ask for information from the electronic health record, and have it summarized back by the computer in words.Chapter 17
It’s titled, “The Power of Voice in Western Medical Education” and it was written by Dr. Neel Desai and Dr. Taylor Brana. They are leaders when it comes to using voice to educate the next generation of medical students. They have an Alexa skill, MedFlashGo, that is doing just that.Chapter 18
This was written by Michelle Wan and is titled, “Voice First Health Interview: Voice Technology for Educational Simulations”Chapter 19
It was written by Ed Chung and is called, “Voice Control of Medical Hardware”. Ed talks about how voice is such a wonderful way to control medical hardware in a number of settings.Section 4
Its titled, “Voice Technology and the Future of Healthcare” and has four chapters, namely:Chapter 20
It’s titled, “Voice First Health Interview: Voice Applications with Dr. David Metcalf” and is about the fascinating things Dr. Metcalf and his team are doing that incorporate voice technology and healthcare.Chapter 21
This is titled, “Voice First Health Interview: Vocal Biomarkers and the Voice Genome Project with Jim Schwoebel” and Jim talks about some fascinating areas of vocal biomarkers and being able to diagnose diseases by listening to someone’s voice.Chapter 22
It was written by Suraj Kapa and is called, “Artificial Intelligence and Voice Analysis: Potential for Disease Identification and Monitoring” Suraj talks about how we can use voice to analyze different types of diseases and monitor diseases as well.Chapter 23
This is a roundtable discussion amongst Dr. David Metcalf, Dr. Sandhya Pruthi, and Teri. They talk about some of the themes, trends, and aha moments that they noticed in putting the book together.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseThe Voice Technology in Healthcare Bookwww.VoiceFirstHealth.com/LiveHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Drs. Neel Desai and Taylor Brana who wrote a chapter together in the Voice Technology in Healthcare book about medical education and how voice technology is completely changing the way that we look at education for medical trainees.
Dr. Desai has dedicated many years towards helping medical students to understand that there is so much more to medicine that just practicing natural medicine. Dr. Brana is the host of the Happy Doc Podcast which amplifies the voices of physicians that are doing really interesting, creative, and fulfilling things that are outside of their regular medical practice. He has had a deep interest in aiding in the processes of medicine, healthcare, and education. Starting The Happy Doc Podcast has enabled them to learn what makes physicians fulfilled in their careers and lives.
Key points from Dr. Desai and Brana!
Voice technology and how it will improve fulfillment, happiness, education, and having the ability to learn in a different way.Getting Interested in Voice
Taylor:
It came so naturally for Taylor.He got into podcasting because it was a way for someone to learn a lot of things while they’re still active doing other things.They learned a lot about voice technology and what it could do from a lot of people including Gary Vaynerchuk.He sees voice as podcast plus where one can imagine a world of the future where they will be able to interact with voice experiences in a way that the user will be in control.Neel:
He got his first smart speaker in 2016 and one day he noticed his son was doing a quiz through an Alexa skill, which he found fascinating.His own frustrations with EMRs made him think of voice as a solution even for the training of medical students.Voice and the Future of Education - Taylor
Teaching has always happened through oral (voice) teachings and so using voice technology is a natural progression.He feels it’s important to understand voice so we can use it to the best of our capacity.In the chapter they wrote in the Voice Technology in Healthcare book, they talked about where the technology is now and where it’s heading.The Mayo Clinic, for example, has a skill that is like a general repository of information. People can ask the skill medical questions, and it will give them solid information about, for example, what to do if they get injured or have a muscle spasm.The benefits of applying voice technology in education are tremendous and there is still so much more to do.Their Education Voice Applications
Neel:
They created MedFlashGo, a medical question bank for students in medical school who are studying for different exams.The skill is for studying for board exams. In the US there are 3 steps to becoming a licensed physician. Each step has important exams that one has to pass to move on to the next level.The skill consists of hands free medical flash cards on the go. The cards consist of test questions for the user. They can be either multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank questions about medical subjects for the user’s exams.They currently have around 1,000 questions with a goal to cover step 1, step 2, step 3, and shelf concepts. Their focus is on teaching the next generation of medical students by creating new healthier learning systems by training them on voice early on. That will ensure that it will not be a big barrier to get them to adopt using voice speakers in healthcare facilities. He believes this application will pioneer the way for new ways of learning.Taylor:
They are also working on DentalFlashGo and MCatFlashGo.The skills are all focused on helping students with their board exams.The Happy Doc Podcast
Taylor:
Burnout, depression and exhaustion is happening a lot in medicine and one of the things they have been talking about is how learning, teaching, creating and practicing medicine in the century we live in is going to be easier and more efficient.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseVoice Technology in HealthcareMedFlashGo SkillMedFlashGo WebsiteMedFlashGo on FacebookMedFlashGo on TwitterMedFlashGo on InstagramThe Happy Doc Podcast WebsiteDr. Neel on TwitterHappy Doc Podcast on FacebookHappy Doc Podcast on InstagramHappy Doc Podcast on TwitterHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri will share a recording of the presentation he did at Project Voice 2020.
Project Voice 2020 was a fantastic event and Teri had the opportunity to participate in a number of different talks including a workshop that he gave with his colleagues Harry Pappas, David Box, and Ilana Meir.
Key points from the Presentation!
Teri’s ideas around what is the opportunity right now for voice technology specifically in healthcare.Designing for voice in healthcare.The Basics for Voice for Healthcare
Teri started the presentation by playing a clip from the movie Elysium where a little girl with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia is put on some futuristic home-based medical machine that completely heals her of the disease.With voice technology and how it’s penetrating the market where we have access to incredible technology, Teri sees it as the primitive version of the technology in that movie scene.Where We Are and What’s Happening Next
Teri shares a story about when he was ten and his parents got their first personal computer (a Tandy computer from RadioShack).They showed Teri how to use it and he spent a long time typing on it.Technology evolved and we went from that type of computer to the newer models we have now.12 years ago Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, and now we have a computer in the palm of our hands.All those technologies have several things in common including the keyboard and an interface.For the first time ever, we don’t need an interface or a device because we can use our voice as the device sits in the background. We can communicate in the most natural way that we know how to communicate using our voices.Voice is extremely efficient and the speed at which we can communicate a message when we are speaking is much faster than if we type.With voice we can multitask, and because of that, voice will be the next operating system.Research on the penetration rates of consumer technologies over the course of history shows that smart speakers are being adopted at a rate more rapid than any consumer technology in our history, including mobile phones.Scenario: What if we could have a physician, dietician, physiotherapist, and nurse living in our homes 24/7 through the kind of technology portrayed in the movie Elysium?That kind is scenario is what gets Teri excited and he believes that we are starting to see the primitive kindlings of that kind of healthcare team in the home.Opportunities for Healthcare in the Home
It’s often been said that the right healthcare system is when you’re getting the right care, at the right time, and in the right place.The Right Care:
If one doesn’t have any medical training and they’re feeling sick, often times they’re not sure what the right care is.They can’t tell whether to see a doctor, take some pills or get some therapy. The way they can figure that out without accessing a healthcare system is through voice. For example, one can talk to their smart assistant which will then tap into AI physicians, nurses, dieticians, etc. who can answer common health questions.Teri believes that will mean voice assistants becoming care providers in the home.The Right Time:
If one feels sick, they may not know when to see a doctor.Scenario: What if that person could ask their voice assistant for help and the voice assistant could start to triage and assess the urgency? Once it does that effectively, it could start to direct the resources of the population.The voice assistants will be doing that at an individual level in each home.The Right Place:
One of the biggest issues for Canadians and people worldwide, is that there is so much demand on the healthcare system that patients will often go to the emergency department for something like a cold, because they can’t access their family doctor. It can take weeks to see a family doctor.That is a huge issue in the Canadian healthcare system, and so directing people to the right place is critical.The question that lingers is, “How does a person know where to go when they don’t have the medical training?” because there are lots of different options for where a person could get some medical care depending on the issue.Scenario: What if voice assistants acted like a tour guide for a healthcare system helping people to navigate through the system?The Pillars of Creating a Healthcare Application
Right now it’s very easy for someone to create a healthcare application that allows one to educate their patients, meaning it’s a one-way communication. A great example is Teri’s health oriented flash briefings.Another great example is how someone can talk to a smart assistant and ask Diabetes related questions which the assistant will answer.The only problem is, there’s very little of a clinical component to that, and so it doesn’t actually provide any diagnosis or treatment.We can’t rely on smart devices to treat a disease but Teri believes in the future we will be relying on the devices to treat us.Aging in Place
This refers to, for example, being able to easily and seamlessly connect with family members through a voice assistant or being able to reminisce about events by talking to a voice assistant to remind us about something that happened in the past.Physician Notes
This is one of the biggest pain points for physicians and if somebody can solve it effectively, it’s the holy grail.Having a voice controlled EMR with AI enriched interactions will also be great breakthrough.Vocal Biomarkers
It’s an exciting area. Entities like the Mayo Clinic are studying biomarkers for voice so that a person could just be speaking and the smart speaker could pick up a health condition in the person.They are looking at coronary artery disease and seeing if they can pick it up from a person’s voice. The technology can also be leveraged for other types of diseases like Parkinson’s and others.Patient-Centered Healthcare
Healthcare systems are a maze that patients have a difficult time trying to navigate. They’re often times not sure where to go and if they do go somewhere, they don’t know where to go next.Teri thinks we should start having smart speakers in the home where a patient can be in the driver’s seat. Patients can access the voice assistants when they need to, get some advice, and when necessary, have their supporting crew of physicians to tap into when they need them.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseLifePodVoice Technology in Healthcare BookHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Sandeep Konam, the Co-Founder and CTO at Abridge, a healthcare and machine learning company.
Abridge creates AI-powered tools that empower patients to take control of their health stories. Sandeep is always excited to build products that positively impact the lives of people. He has great experience working at the intersection of machine learning and health. In the past, he has worked on enhancing perception capabilities of UAVs on multi-robot coordination, and was involved with several health-tech projects. Most recently, he worked on deep-learning-based autonomy for UAVs and developed techniques to make deep-learning algorithms interpretable. He is also the founder at KONAM Foundation where they build tech interventions to address challenges in agriculture and education.
Key points from Sandeep!
How Abridge enables patients to record their conversations with their healthcare providers, and then have a log of what the encounter was about, using their own speech language and machine learning tech.Getting into Voice
He has been working at the intersection of machine learning and health for about seven years.Around 2016, he got interested in creating an oncology clinical trial matching platform, where oncologists and patients can easily find a list of clinical trials for eligible patients. Doctors, clinicians, and patients loved the idea, but data liquidity and integrations with EHR systems turned out to be an uphill battle.The fact that patients have no access or right to their data challenged Sandeep, and that is what formed the basis for the creation of Abridge’s technology.Abridge works towards helping patients capture, create, and curate their own healthcare data via audio recording.How their Technology Works
Patients use the Abridge platform to securely record, review, and share their clinical data.They tap a button in the app, and then record audio which is then encrypted and uploaded to the cloud for further machine learning processing.Once the audio is processed, they can quickly review it using clinical concepts that are highlighted by Abridge's machine learning pipeline. A patient can also keep their loved ones in the loop by sharing the recordings with them.Everything is powered by Abridge's in-house machine learning tech that has been built over time.They use different machine learning platforms in addition to their own to parse all the information being captured and synthesize it into a way that is succinct and summarized in a way that patients can benefit from.Feedback from Patients and Clinicians
They get very positive feedback from caregivers, doctors, clinicians, and patients. They have come forward and showed their appreciation for the app and talked about how it’s been transformational to them.Some clinicians appreciate that the patients can handle the recording part of their conversations where all they have to do is review the recordings. Doctor-Patient relationships have also improved because of this.He sees this form of recording healthcare data becoming the future trend.Physicians will sometimes request the recordings to put in their medical charts, but the decision lies solely on the patients.Plans for a Clinician-focused Platform
They believe they can provide value to clinicians, but in the short term, patients are their only focus.Privacy and Security
Privacy is a core principal that they abide by with their platform. Users own and control their data. If they deleted the data it’s deleted for good, and if they share it it’s shared. Abridge doesn’t sell any data.They use a state of the art encryption technique for security when a patient records audio all the way to the point where they get a summary of their recording.HIPAA Compliance
They have not necessarily altered the app for HIPAA Compliance, but they have checked off all the necessary boxes because they go above HIPAA Compliance in their data privacy and security processes.The fact that their app is patient-focused also means that they’re not necessarily required to have HIPAA Compliance.The Future for Abridge
They are constantly working on improving privacy and security.They’re also continuously enhancing their machine learning capabilities.The Meaning of Voice First Health to Sandeep
With the ongoing talk about voice as a biomarker that can be used to detect health issues, and talk about doctor burn out, he believes the right approach is working on giving patients a voice centered experience where they can capture the audio of their interactions with their doctors.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseAbridge’s WebsiteSandeep’s Email – [email protected]Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Rana Gujral, the CEO of Behavioral Signals, a company that allows developers to add speech emotion and behavioral recognition AI to their products.
Rana is also an entrepreneur, speaker, and investor, and has been awarded the ‘Entrepreneur of the Month’ by CIO Magazine, and the ‘US China Pioneer’ Award by IEIE. He was also listed in Inc. Magazine as an “AI Entrepreneur to Watch”. He has extensive experience in enterprise software, product development, strategy, business-building, and emerging markets. Rana previously served as an Executive Vice President at Cricut Inc where he headed engineering, strategy, technology and IT, and also held leadership positions at Logitech S.A., Kronos Inc., and Deutsche Bank AG, where he was responsible for the development of best-in-class products and contributed towards several award-winning engineering innovations.
Key points from Rana!
The many reasons why it’s important that machines can recognize and express human emotion, including improving human computer interaction and boosting business KPIs.Looking at the intention behind the words that somebody is speaking and how that is being used in the financial and health sectors.Suicide risk and the ethics behind what happens when an AI is showing the meaning of what a person is saying.Developing an Interest in Voice and Joining Behavioral Signals
He had been following the voice space and fascinated by AI.In the last decade, the voice technology industry has really progressed. Five to seven years ago we were speaking to NLP or speech-to-text as cutting edge technology, but fast forward to now, it’s no longer considered cutting edge even though it’s very accurate with brilliant business models built on top of it.Voice technology has been directed towards creating a wide range of solutions in different domains, and what Behavioral Signals focuses on is how words are said, and what that says to the state of mind of a speaker. Rana believes this is the aspect of voice interactions that’s going to be a game changer.He also believes that it is the aspect of voice interaction that has been holding the whole interaction piece of voice technology back.How the Technology Tells the Difference
At the core of Behavioral Signals’ engine processes, is the variety of outputs when an interaction is being recorded. They go after who spoke when (diarisation) where they deduce basic emotions like anger, sadness, happiness, and frustration. They also go after specific aspects of tone change which is the trend of positivity within the duration of a conversation.They are less hang up on what is being said, and are focused more on the emphasis behind the words. That tells them a lot.An example is a study that was done at Yale University where they took a piece of content from YouTube and just took the audio out of it. They then deduced the emotional behavioral signals from it and mapped it out. Then they turned the video on and analyzed both the audio and the video, looking at the facial expressions and body language of the people in the video, and added that to the emotional and behavioral map that they were piecing together.The natural expectation there was that when adding those additional data points, in addition to just processing the audio piece, they could get more accurate, but what they found was that they actually became less accurate.That meant that when they were mapping based on audio only; there was a higher score than when they were also looking at the video. What they realized is that we as humans are fairly adept at masking our emotions through our facial expressions, but we can’t do that with our tone of voice.Scientists have proven that if one can accurately create an emotional behavioral map of an interaction, or decipher the cognitive state of mind of a participant, and understand the context of that interaction, they can predict what that person will do in the near future, and in some ways predict intent.For example, Behavioral Signals is working with collections and banks to predict if a debt holder is going to pay their debt or not, simply by listening to a voice conversation. They have been able to do that with a very high level of accuracy.They are also working with another company that is building a software platform to cater to patients with depression. The company using Behavioral Signals’ technology to predict a propensity for suicidal behavior.The Ethics
The technology could be misused and so people must be careful when using it. He believes companies like Behavioral Signals have a responsibility to protect the data.We are going to rely more and more on inanimate systems and machines, and the systems/machines will become more intelligent than humans.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseRana on Twitter and LinkedinRana’s WebsiteBehavioral Signals WebsiteHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Rabbi Elijah Dordek, the founder and CEO of the ShanenLi Speech Recognition app.
Rabbi Dordek is a pioneer when it comes to voice technology and using voice applications to help people learn things. ShanenLi is an interactive tutor that helps students, young and old, to achieve literacy and master memory, using Automatic Speech Recognition. It guides users to practice reading, reciting and memorizing.
Currently featuring Pirke Avot (Classic Hebrew Text), the user listens to each paragraph and can follow along as each line lights up when read. When proficient, the user reads aloud and is tested. The recitation is marked in color for errors to enhance self-correction. Stars are earned according to score, along with sound effects and words of encouragement. The user can share their progress with others.
Key points from Rabbi Elijah Dordek!
Helping people learn religious texts through the ShanenLi app.How the technology can be applied in medical education for medical students that need to learn and memorize tons of information, and as a tool to help determine and become proficient in ways of communicating with patients.Background
He is based out of Jerusalem, Israel.He studied Judaism at a deeper level and decided to abandon his plans to go to MIT and become a teacher/educator.Through his studies (Oral Law of the Torah), he ended up developing systems for helping people learn the same. He also looked at how he could use technology to create an interactive way through which people could learn and master large or small bodies of text.He’s also a trained psychotherapist.Introduction to Voice Technology
Being involved in the Oral Law of Torah (which is meant to be known by heart), he wanted to find ways to help those who were struggling with their studies of the Oral Law. He printed books that visually put the texts in the Oral Law in such a way that people could learn much more easily.While thinking about how he could use technology to achieve the goal of helping people learn, he came up with the idea of using voice to have a conversation between man and machine, where the machine would be able to present the text and line by line help the user hear it and repeat it until they had gained proficiency.The Technology at the Root of the Technology
They have the ShanenLi Speech Recognition app which is in the Play Store and it’s primarily in Hebrew, but they’re trying to grow out into other languages. The backend for this app is the Google speech recognition API.A great user case example would be someone who is scheduled to do a TED Talk and they have to know their talk by heart. It might not be the easiest thing to do, but the technology can help this person achieve that more quickly, easily, and in a pleasurable way.The Evolution
He believes we’ve come a long way to getting machines to do what we want, but that it’s not there yet because the conversations are not flowing.He believes machines will progress gradually to get there in the future.How the Technology Can Impact Healthcare
He knows of a company that created a voice application that analyzes the voice for health issues. It can help a doctor find if someone has a health issue just from their voice.He believes and has high hopes that anything we can humanly define, we can then somehow ask a computer to search for.Links and Resources in this Episode
Rabbi Dordek on LinkedinRabbi Dordek on TwitterRabbi Dordek’s Email Address - [email protected]Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes back Brian Roemmele, the “Oracle of Voice” and the “Modern Day Thomas Edison.
Brian is the consummate Renaissance man. He is a scientist, researcher, analyst, connector, thinker and doer. He is actually credited for having come up with the term “Voice First”. Over the long, winding arc of his career, Brian has built and run payments and tech businesses worked in media, including the promotion of top musicians, and explored a variety of other subjects along the way.
Brian actively shares his findings and observations across fora like Forbes, Huffington Post, Newsweek, Slate, Business Insider, Daily Mail, Inc, Gizmodo, Medium, Quora (An exclusive Quora top writer for: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013), Twitter (quoted and published), Around the Coin (earliest cryptocurrency podcast), Breaking Banks Radio and This Week In Voice on VoiceFirst.FM that surfaces everything from Bitcoin to Voice Commerce.
Key points from Brian!
Medical transcription devices and how the new release of the Google Recorder is a huge leap forward in the future for medical transcription.Google Recorder
It takes real time voice and transcribes it into the new Pixel 4 phone. It's all being done completely local to the device, meaning that the device can be in airplane mode, have no SIM card or WiFi, and the device will still do phenomenal speech to text.The device is a Google search engine built inside of the storage of the voice speech-to-text files that one creates.It’s an assembly of a lot of technology that has existed in the market, but done in such a way that it is unique and more useful.Voice transcription has been around since the 70s, but the ability to file the transcriptions in a meaningful way hasn’t been around for a long time.The Google Recorder is much more simplified than using a desktop or laptop.The device is currently just a freeform database. It’s not a physician fill-out-the-patient-form with your voice solution, it’s a notes solution.Google doesn’t yet know what they have with the Google Recorder.Tackling the Issue of Voice Dictation/Medical Transcription
The amount of paperwork physicians have to handle takes up more than 60% of their time.The problem with the existing medical transcription devices is that they’re designed for engineers to solve the problem and human factors are not built into the system.Brian works from the solution backwards. He believes that the best solution would be a device that doctors wear which talks to them.It will probably be in their ear and will have a microphone. It might also have glasses and give visual feedback.Scenario: A doctor visits their patient and asks the patient for permission to use the transcription device which is covered by HIPAA laws and deletes the audio file after full transcription, but the text remains. At some point, after say 30 to 50 years of patient interactions, the database will be the entire notation of the patient. It will be legally okay for a physician never to fill out a form again, because the database itself will maintain the continuity of that patient.The solution will be physicians being able to fill out notes in real time as they are talking to the patient. The intelligence will be built into the intelligence amplifier (the device) and it will extract the notes necessary to fill out the forms without a physician directing it.Brian says that if he was at Google, he would make it the size of a gum stick pack, put it with a really good set of headphones (one in one ear and one charging at any one time). It would have a light to demonstrate that it’s on. Patients would be aware when it’s recording.He believes that Google can do that today with a standalone device, but they don’t have the AI to support it.The device must not use the cloud or a network to store the patients’ data. It must instantly transcribe to a hardened local system.Links and Resources in this Episode
www.VoiceFirst.ExpertBrian Roemmele on TwitterBrian Roemmele on QuoraHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Scot and Susan Westwater, the co-founders of Pragmatic Digital, a digital consultancy experienced in designing voice experiences.
Scot is the Lead Strategist at Pragmatic while Susan serves as the CEO. They started the consultancy to help entrepreneurs and marketers understand the opportunity that voice represents and to help them take advantage of it.
Key points from Scot and Susan!
Designing voice applications specifically with regards to healthcare.Getting into Voice
They first heard about voice from Gary Vaynerchuk and they got interested.They did some research and saw voice as a technology that had the potential to blow up just like web, mobile, and social media did.They saw it as an opportunity to do some good in the world and help a lot of people through education.For Susan, what made the selling point for voice is how it makes information accessible.Creating a Good Voice Experience for Healthcare
The first strategic move to make when creating a good voice experience for healthcare is to look at the target audience. In healthcare, there are 3 distinct audiences namely; the payer, provider, and patient.A business or organization must make sure that they clearly understand what they want to accomplish for either one or all of the three audiences.Another thing to consider as an organization is what the desired achievements are with the healthcare experience they want to create.VoiceFirst = PatientFirst
This is an idea that you start with the patient.A lot of healthcare organizations talk about being patient-centric, but Scot has observed that most of them are not as patient-centric as they say they are.Healthcare organizations should start with patients’ needs by ensuring that they are provided with all the information they seek on the healthcare issues they suffer from.They should also have empathy for the healthcare conditions that they deal with by putting themselves in the shoes of the patients suffering from them.How HIPAA Requirements Play Into Things
Physicians can be able to get disease information out there in a way that most health organizations cannot, because the organizations have a lot of regulatory and legal concerns to consider.The Barriers
Scot and Susan just did an informal survey online with the business and healthcare community to try and understand the challenges and barriers that prevent them from creating healthcare experiences.Most of them take a more wait-and-see approach because they don’t understand the regulatory and legal issues they might have to face.The Future of Voice
In Scot’s mind, voice is going to become the default input for most computing devices.The huge inroads being made by companies like Samsung in TVs, refrigerators, and other appliances, demonstrates how voice will become a ubiquitous technology that we interface with.Scot believes voice technology will follow us everywhere we go through different devices and experiences.Currently, voice is playing a major role in elder care and the potential impact it can have in healthcare is huge. Moving things into a hands-free voice-enabled space can help with everything from physician-patient relationships and how they interact, to patient care and so many other things like symptom tracking.There are numerous potential use cases for voice in healthcare.Their Book
They have a book coming out in November called Voice Strategy: Creating Useful and Usable Voice Experiences.The book will include their combined 20+ years of experience and all the voice knowledge that they have gained over the past couple of years, and it will be geared towards helping people create good voice experiences.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseVoice Strategy By Scot and Susan WestwaterPragramatic’s Website (Scot & Susan's Blog)Scot on TwitterSusan on TwitterScot on LinkedinSusan on LinkedinHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Monica Chaudhari, the Founder/CEO of AdirA, a Health Action Platform which helps women be the Chief Wellness Officers (CWOs) of their families and implement good health and wellness decisions for themselves and their entire families.
Monica became a start-up entrepreneur after age 50, building AdirA for women, by women. Prior to starting AdirA, she worked all over the world for a reputed pharmaceutical company. Her vision for AdirA is to serve CWOs with the utmost independence and integrity while running a profitable business. Monica herself is a CWO to her mother, her spouse, and two grown sons.
Key points from Monica!
Using personalized decision support tools to help women make and act on health and wellness decisions, and incorporating voice technology into that.The Concept Behind AdirA
AdirA means a strong, noble, and powerful woman.Monica named the company AdirA because they focus on the Chief Wellness Officer of the family, and that is 80% of women who are 35 to 64 years old. These women are usually the key decision makers for health and wellness related matters for about 5 to 7 people in their family.Statistics from major health information websites indicate that more than 75% of all the health-related information that is researched on the web is done by women, for themselves and their families.There is a lot of good health information on the web, but due to its large volumes, it becomes overwhelming. The women end up delaying a decision or not making it at all because of that. They also end up in a doctor’s office unprepared for the necessary conversation.The whole researching process is a dissatisfying and negative experience, and that’s where AdirA comes in.AdirA helps women in accessing the necessary information and concierges them to the products and services that are relevant to the decision or recommendation that’s right for them and their families. AdirA also provides them with two talking points (based on their decision process and recommendation) on what to say when they go to see a doctor.AdirA doesn’t own the products and services that they concierge the women to.How AdirA Works and The Voice Technology Element
As they were building out the platform, they decided to partner with Orbita instead of investing a lot of money and time into building their own IT infrastructure.They built their own proprietary interface around Orbita’s chat and voice activated technology.They develop consumer experiences based on the needs of the clients and sponsors that they have.They target all their communication towards women and the women are engaged by a chatbot on the AdirA website.The experiences are under 3 minutes because women are busy, and they want fast, efficient, and personalized services.In less than 3 minutes, the women are assisted in getting through a series of 12 to 14 questions. At the end of the experience, the women are given 2 to 4 recommendations.The women are also concierged to 3 or 4 relevant products and services to implement their decision.AdirA never plugs any sponsor ads or sponsor connects into the concierging. They have a sponsor corner on the website where women can choose to interact with the sponsors on their own volition.They currently have a contraception decision tree. When a woman uses the tree, they know exactly which medical professional built the tree.She also gets to ask her medical question related to contraception and she gets a recommendation on where to get information on that. She is connected to telemedicine and a doctor finder, and then given two talking points based on the answers that she gave in the decision tree that are most relevant to he conversation with a doctor.They are also concierged to all the relevant products and services.The contraception decision tree is ratified by Healthy Women, a non-profit for women’s health education.The whole experience makes the process of seeking contraception information much easier and efficient for women.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseAdirA WebsiteHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In this episode, Teri welcomes Natalia Suarez, a young UX and Voice User Experience (VUX) designer who is passionate about using voice technology to solve the issue of Dementia.
Natalia is originally from the Dominican Republic and now living in London. She is studying interactive media and is currently working on three different skills that are geared towards tackling the issue of Dementia.
Key points from Natalia!
How to leverage voice technology to help those with Dementia.Natalia’s Background
She was focused on graphic design, but later shifted into UX, which is what she has been doing for the last 5 years.She recently completed a Master’s degree in Interactive Media Practice which is how she got involved in voice technology.Master’s in Interactive Media Practice
This is a program at the University of Westminster and it entails topics such as social media, interaction design, user experience, mobile apps, wearables, and much more.Getting Interested in Voice Technology
While looking for something major and unique to do for her final project, she came across someone interacting with an Echo device.That caught her attention and as a UX designer, and she wanted to experience what it would be like to be a voice user interface designer.She based her thesis project around that.Focusing on Dementia
Her grandmother had Dementia before she passed away and Natalia always wondered how she could have communicated with her grandmother better so she could understand her needs. Her grandfather also has Dementia. That formed her passion for tackling Dementia.Dementia and Voice Technology
For her final thesis project, she has developed 3 Alexa skills, one of which is published.The published skill, Colour Mind, is a basic quiz for people with Dementia. It helps people going through memory loss remember colors and other things, and is dedicated to providing a fun and engaging way for Dementia patients to communicate with family members, carers, and other people. It helps them associate things from nature with the correct color names, and allows them to engage in informal conversations.The other Alexa skills that she’s working on are “About Me” and “My Journey”.About Me will be geared towards helping Dementia patients remember things about their lives like the names of their parents and other people, what things they like, and other things. This skill will be integrated with a form that a carer will complete for the patient, including all the information about the patient.My Journey will be geared towards helping patients remember where they’re going. Natalia is most excited about this skill because it can be expanded and help so many people. A patient will be able to leave their house when going somewhere and if they forget where they’re going along the way, they will be able to ask Alexa to remind them where they’re going. This skill can be used in some many ways by both carers and patients.About Me and My Journey will be ready for publishing on the skill store in a month’s time.Feedback From Users About Colour Mind
She did a lot of user testing while working on the skill.She did the testing online and also used card sorting through a tool called Optimal Workshop, where she had some of her friends test the skill with their grandparents who had Dementia.Alexa’s responses are always positive whenever a patient answers something wrong.Natalia has been working on making the skill multimodal.Links and Resources in this Episode
The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula CourseColour MindNatalia on LinkedinNatalia on TwitterHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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