By Art Gross, President and CEO, HIPAA Secure Now!
Twitter:Â @HIPAASecureNow
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Amazon isn’t a company that lets an opportunity go by. With the awareness of cybersecurity rising every single day, opportunity presents itself in a variety of ways. Not only do they have a captive consumer audience, but familiarity and reputation allow them to venture into the enterprise field with credibility as well.
With that being said, recently they announced the release of AWS Transcribe Medical. This artificial intelligence (AI) tool allows medical records to be transcribed from doctor-patient conversations, providing less administration time, and more face time for the relationship to develop. Eliminating the need for grammatical punctuation to be included in the dictation, this machine learning-powered service will allow physicians to speak normally while updating patient records electronically.
Where’s the Privacy?
So how does this HIPAA-eligible service (yes, you read that correctly) provide benefit? First, it gives medical professionals more time to provide patient care, and less time worrying about writing or dictation to a medical transcriber. Second, it works with their medical management service that works with Alexa to allow consumers to make voice requests for medical refills and reminders. Remember when we all wondered “why would I need Alexa?” – well, Amazon has answered that for you by building up integration with our everyday life tasks.
They’ve also made all Alexa voice apps to include the option to be HIPAA compliant. Amazon Care, their own healthcare service for employees has been piloting the use of Alexa in hospital environments. It is worth noting that Google and Microsoft are also working on similar technologies.
We’ll be watching this closely to see how it all plays out for patient data and the security factor that surrounds such information and where the privacy and human factor are integrated with the functionality.
This article was originally published on HIPAA Secure Now! and is republished here with permission. HIPAA Secure Now offers annual online subscriptions to help covered entities and business associates keep up with compliance. Learn more here.
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