DIGITAL HEALTH BRIEFING: Nearly 1 in 5 EU5 physicians use Siri, Alexa - Apple Watch sensor can detect dangerous levels of potassium - Fitbit app targets women's health

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1 IN 6 EUROPEAN PHYSICIANS USING SIRI, ALEXA: As voice assistants continue to gain traction with consumers, doctors are also turning to them to free up more time for tending to their patients. More than half of physicians in EU5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK) use or are interested in using voice assistants at work, according to new data from DRG Digital. And 17% are already using voice assistants, such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, in their clinical practice to look up disease information and treatment guidelines, and to check their schedules. A further 39% of EU5 physicians are interested in using voice assistants in the future.

Early adopters of voice assistants in a clinical setting have found the technology can help on two fronts:

• Easing the burden of inputting and retrieving patient data. Doctors are spending an increasing amount of time engaged with electronic health records (EHR), which is both taking away from time spent with patients, and leading to physician burnout. In the US for example, the average physician spent almost 4 hours using electronic health record (EHR) systems each day in 2017, according to DRG. That's up from 2.8 hours in 2014.
• Increasing physician and clinic productivity. As less time is spent with admin work, more time can be spent seeing patients. On average physicians who are using voice assistant technology see 105 patients per week, compared to 96 patients per week for physicians who don't use the technology, DRG notes.

It's not just major tech companies offering voice assistant technology to healthcare systems. Although the consumer-facing assistants from Amazon, Apple, and Google are improving their capabilities in leaps and bounds, more niche players are providing healthcare organizations with dedicated voice assistants that are perhaps better-suited to the health landscape. For example, in January 2018, EHR vendor eClinicalWorks launched Eva, an assistant that allows physicians to pull patient data and order prescriptions.

We project the use of voice in the healthcare industry will gain traction in line with the overall growth of voice as a primary interface - by 2020, voice searches will account for 50% of all Google searches, according to comScore. To reach that point, however, several hurdles need to be overcome, including inaccuracies in natural language processing, privacy concerns, HIPAA compliance, and a general lack of awareness.

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APPLE WATCH SENSOR CAN TEST FOR DANGEROUS LEVELS OF POTASSIUM: KardiaBand, an Apple Watch-compatible sensor from AliveCor, can detect dangerous levels of potassium in users' blood, called hyperkalemia, according to The Verge. The KardiaBand sensor attaches to the band of an Apple Watch, which the wearer touches to get an electrocardiogram (EKG) reading. These results are then processed by AliveCor's new AI algorithm, which was developed by the Mayo Clinic and AliveCor. It uses a data set of 2 million EKGs and 4 million potassium levels to detect hyperkalemia with 94% accuracy. The new function, which isn't FDA-approved yet, could provide an alternative to invasive blood tests. It adds to the growing list of procedures that mobile heart-rate monitoring wearables can support. For example, the Apple Watch can detect atrial fibrillation (aFib), with 97% accuracy, and an algorithm by Cardiogram can identify early signs of diabetes in patients using wearable data.

FITBIT TARGETS WOMEN'S HEALTH WITH APP UPDATE: Global health and fitness company Fitbit unveiled an update to its smartphone app that aims to make the service more helpful to its female users and more competitive with Apple. The new feature, slated for release in Spring 2018, will allow female Fitbit users to track their menstrual cycle, which Fitbit hopes will help women better understand how their health affects their periods and vice versa. A recent survey by the company found that 80% of women did not know how many phases are in a menstrual cycle and more than 70% were unable to correctly identify the average length of a cycle, demonstrating an overall lack of awareness about women's health. Over time, menstrual cycle data could help physicians identify underlying issues for the user and lead to early detection of conditions such as fibroids, Boston University School of Medicine assistant professor Dr. Katharine White told The Verge. The update comes amidst Fitbit's pivot to focus on improving and expanding the range of solutions and services it delivers users as it takes a more serious approach to health tracking. In February, Fitbit announced that it was acquiring cloud-based healthcare platform Twine Health, to make its line of wearables more valuable to consumers and healthcare providers, alike. The company is working hard to recover after a string of quarterly disappointments. Shipments of Fitbit devices fell 17% year-over-year (YoY) during Q4 2017, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of YoY decline, according to the wearable makers' Q4 earnings report.

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SMARTPHONES ARE SPEEDING UP HOSPITAL ER DISCHARGE TIMES: A newly published study in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine suggests that some patients could be discharged from the ER almost half an hour earlier if physicians receive test results as push notifications on their smartphones rather than in the hospital's electronic health record (EHR) system. The study of 1,554 patients who came to the emergency room with chest pain, found that it took around 80 minutes from when doctors received a patient's test results to when the patient was discharged. For patients whose physician received the results on their smartphones, that time was 68.5 minutes, compared to 94 minutes for patients whose doctors used the EHR system. Reducing wait times in ERs is important given the positive correlation between longer wait times and an increased risk of death, according to MobiHealthNews. Although the study was limited to patients with chest pain, there are multiple other results that could be pushed out to ER doctors including critical lab results, radiology reports, and vital signs, the study authors said.

IN OTHER NEWS

• Health insurer Cigna announced its entrance to the voice industry with the Amazon Alexa voice-skill "Answers by Cigna." The service aims to make it easier for customers to search through their health benefits information as well as help users better understand their health plans.
• Inovalon, a tech company that provides cloud-based platforms for healthcare, announced Tuesday its plans to acquire healthcare software-as-a-service (Saas) company ABILITY for more than $1 billion. The deal will give Inovalon access to the 44,000 hospitals that ABILITY's Saas platform services, providing a much-needed buffer as Inovalon's core customer growth wanes.