Want some answers about COVID-19, including a description of possible symptoms?
Ask Alexa.
The Mayo Clinic has added a skill set, dubbed "Answers on COVID-19," to Amazon's Alexa home devices such as the Echo and Echo Dot . In addition to offering users the latest information about symptoms, Alexa will now be able to relate tips on prevention and how to determine whether they're candidates for testing.
In addition to a COVID-19 self-assessment tool, the skill set also offers guidance on when to seek medical care and what to do in the meantime, with information based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and Mayo Clinic expert opinion.
"With a rapidly developing pandemic like COVID-19, delivering trusted health information on how to respond to our patients and the public is critical," said Dr. Sandhya Pruthi, a Mayo Clinic physician and medical director for Mayo's Health Education and Content Services, in a statement.
"For Mayo Clinic, voice technologies allow us to deliver information and care when, where and how people wish to access it," she said. "Accurate, easily accessible information is key to fighting this pandemic, and voice technologies are another avenue to get information to the public.”
Mayo Clinic had previously launched a skill for Alexa-based devices called the "Mayo Clinic First-Aid" skill, which offers expert self-care guidance for treating dozens of incidents. Before users can access the new skill, they must first enable the skill on an Alexa-equipped device by saying, "Alexa, open Mayo Clinic Answers on COVID-19." After that they can ask questions about COVID-19, such as "What are the symptoms of coronavirus?”
According to our colleague Nathan Eddy at HealthcareITNews, Amazon has made a series of skills available that address COVID-19 specifically, which offer the ability to answer tens of thousands of questions related to the pandemic in countries around the world.
For example, notes Eddy, using guidance from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Indian Council for Medical Research, customers in India can use Alexa to check their symptoms for COVID-19 at home.
In the U.S., following CDC guidance the Alexa health team built an experience that lets users deploy Alexa to check risk levels for COVID-19 at home.