Amazon Brings Alexa to Senior Living Communities and Healthcare Systems with Alexa Smart Properties
Today, Amazon announced two new solutions as part of Alexa Smart Properties that will enable senior living and healthcare providers to integrate Alexa into their properties and empower residents and patients to stay connected, informed and entertained, just by asking 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 customized Alexa experiences for residents and patients, and increase care team productivity and operational efficiency.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211025005336/en/
An Echo Show 8 deployed in a senior living community (Photo: Business Wire)
“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, 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 personalize care for their patients and residents.”
Empowering Connection in Senior Living Communities
Alexa Smart Properties 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 customizing community information like 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 like check-ins, field requests for maintenance, and administrative tasks—enabling associates to save time and increase productivity. Senior living communities like 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 A. Moore, Chairman and 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.”
Helping Hospitals Deliver Personalized Care
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 like calling and Drop In—without the need to enter 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 personalized care. Hospitals also can provide information customized to their facility, like notifications about schedule changes or cafeteria menus, and skill experiences like games, podcasts, and more. 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 of Medical and Surgical Services 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.”
Deploying Solutions at Scale with Alexa Smart Properties
In addition to support for senior living and healthcare, Alexa Smart Properties offers a set of vertical solutions that enable Alexa experiences in properties such as hotels, vacation rentals, apartments, offices, and more. Alexa Smart Properties tools and APIs make it fast and easy for solution providers to manage and service a fleet of Alexa-enabled devices quickly, remotely, and at scale. By working with solution providers like K4Connect, Lifeline Senior Living, Aiva, and Vocera, senior living and healthcare properties can use Alexa Smart Properties to easily deploy and customize large numbers of Alexa-enabled devices.
“Working with Alexa Smart Properties has enabled Aiva to bring AI voice technology that can be easily customized, managed, and deployed at enterprise scale,” said Sumeet Bhatia, founder and chief executive officer 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.”
With the help of solution providers, 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 like, “Alexa, what time does yoga start?” and perform property-specific actions like, “Alexa, could you ask for my mail to be delivered?” Hospitals and senior living communities can also build and enable HIPAA-eligible skills, like 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.”
Built with Privacy in Mind
Alexa Smart Properties senior living and healthcare solutions 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 solutions in the U.S. starting next month. To learn more, contact us here.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
