UNLOCK THE POWER OF PATIENTS' VOICE

Five ways voice recognition technology and analytics can help make healthcare work better for everyone

- Rajesh Sabapathy & Vikas Chaudhary

Recent advances achieved through the use of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), a form of Machine Learning (ML), have made Artificial Intelligence (AI) a household term. One of the goals of AI is to recognize and understand human speech across all languages. To this end, DNN based models built by the internet technology giants continue to break records on some of the well-known speech recognition benchmarks, such as the LibriSpeech Automatic Speech Recognition benchmark. This has led to an explosion of activity in building voice-based applications, with CB Insights estimating the market size for voice recognition to hit USD 49 billion in a couple of years, and VC funding tripling in a year from USD 0.5 Billion in 2018 to around USD 1.5 Billion in 2019.

In this article, we look at five areas in healthcare, where voice recognition technology and analytics can unlock value to help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone.

Diagnosis, detection, and tracking of diseases

An emerging application of voice technology is the use of vocal biomarkers to detect and diagnose diseases ahead of time. A patient’s voice, speech patterns, and breathing rhythm hold clues to underlying conditions. For example, there is research underway on early detection of Alzheimer’s and Dementia by using a patient’s speech patterns. Another example is how lung auscultation, the process of listening to lung sounds, can be performed using a digital stethoscope.