Healthcare providers can use Alexa to help patients stay connected, informed and entertained, just by asking Alexa.

Amazon has added two features to Alexa Smart Properties that will let senior living and healthcare providers integrate Alexa.

Designed specifically for the needs of senior living communities and healthcare facilities, Alexa Smart Properties simplifies deploying and managing Alexa-enabled devices at scale, helping properties offer customised Alexa experiences for residents and patients, and increase care team productivity and operational efficiency.

“We believe the intuitive and accessible nature of voice and Alexa has the potential to help and delight customers in many scenarios, in and outside of the home,” said Liron Torres, head of Alexa Smart Properties at Amazon. “We’re excited to extend the experiences customers already love to senior living communities and healthcare systems, and give providers new ways to save time and personalise care for their patients and residents.”

With Alexa Smart Properties, patients can communicate with their care staff, control devices in their room or stay informed and entertained with news and music, just by asking Alexa. Healthcare providers can communicate with patients quickly and easily with features such as calling and drop in without entering patient rooms. This enables hospitals to increase productivity, conserve medical supplies and protective equipment, such as masks, gloves and gowns, and free up staff time to provide more personalised care.

Hospitals also can provide information customised to their facility, such as notifications about schedule changes or cafeteria menus, and skill experiences such as games and podcasts. Health systems including Boston Children’s Hospital, Cedars-Sinai, BayCare and Houston Methodist are adopting Alexa Smart Properties to help care for their patients more efficiently.

“Voice is intuitive for patients, regardless of age or tech savviness,” said Peachy Hain, executive director at Cedars-Sinai. “Since it’s so easy to operate, patients can use Alexa to connect with their care team and stay entertained as soon as they settle in, while care providers can streamline tasks to make more time to care for those patients. It’s a total gamechanger for enhancing our hospital experience.”

Alexa Smart Properties also enables senior living residents to keep in touch with their loved ones, connect with their community, access community news and more, using the Amazon Echo device in their room. Family members and friends outside the property get peace of mind knowing they can easily get in touch with residents through Alexa calling.

Administrators can offer access to tens of thousands of Alexa skills, and tailor resident experiences by customising community information such as activity schedules and meal menus. Care team members can communicate more efficiently with residents using Alexa communication features, which enable them to make announcements, voice and video calls, or send direct audio messages to other Alexa-enabled devices throughout the property.

Alexa can also help communities streamline activities such as check-ins, field requests for maintenance, and administrative tasks, enabling associates to save time and increase productivity. Senior living communities such as Atria and Eskaton will integrate with Alexa Smart Properties at select locations to provide a better experience for residents, while creating empowered and more connected communities.

“We’ve consistently moved to put our residents in the position to live their best lives, now,” said John Moore, CEO of Atria Senior Living. “Technology has played a critical role in this effort. When you combine our resident and family app with the deployment of Alexa Smart Properties in our communities, seniors have an even greater ability to write the next chapter of their lives through easy-to-use technology that keeps them engaged and connected to their families at all times.”

In addition to support for senior living and healthcare, Alexa Smart Properties enables Alexa experiences in properties such as hotels, vacation rentals, apartments and offices. Tools and APIs make it fast and easy to manage and service a fleet of Alexa-enabled devices quickly, remotely and at scale.

By working with providers such as K4Connect, Lifeline Senior Living, Aiva and Vocera, senior living and healthcare properties can use Alexa Smart Properties to deploy and customise large numbers of Alexa-enabled devices.

“Working with Alexa Smart Properties has enabled Aiva to bring AI voice technology that can be easily customised, managed and deployed at enterprise scale,” said Sumeet Bhatia, CEO of Aiva. “Using Alexa Smart Properties, Aiva takes work off of nurses’ plates and enables them to focus on direct, high-value care, while giving patients a better, more self-directed experience.”

Administrators can build, publish and enable skills to answer property-specific questions and integrate with other property management systems, so residents and patients can request property information such as “Alexa, what time does yoga start?” and perform property-specific actions such as “Alexa, could you ask for my mail to be delivered?”

Hospitals and senior living communities can also build and enable HIPAA-eligible skills, such as medication tracking, to connect care providers with residents and patients in an environment designed to protect their health information.

“Voice integration has the power to transform how resident requests are made and how staff respond,” said Kim Judd, general manager of Lifeline Senior Living. “Adding Alexa Smart Properties functionality to our CarePoint resident safety system enables residents to make hands-free help requests and receive verbal confirmation to know they’ve been heard. And staff can see the context of requests and triage more efficiently. It opens up new opportunities for better care, from simple requests to daily announcements, resident check-ins, even helping to ease social isolation. CarePoint with Alexa will be a real advantage for our customers.”

These features were designed with privacy in mind. No personal information is shared with Alexa to use the device, and voice recordings are not saved. Every Amazon Echo device offers multiple layers of privacy protection, and residents and patients can disable Alexa’s ability to respond to the wake word at any time by simply pressing the mute button on top of their Echo device. Amazon implements administrative, technical and physical safeguards for protected health information received as part of HIPAA-eligible skill interactions.

Alexa Smart Properties will support senior living and healthcare in the USA starting this month.