Accepted for/Published in: JMIR AI
Date Submitted: Dec 20, 2023
Date Accepted: Nov 24, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Adopting smart speakers for healthcare and social care settings. Use cases, target groups and motivations: A scoping review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Conversational agents (CA) are finding increasing application in healthcare and social care, not least due to their increasing private use. Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP) have enabled a variety of new uses for CA. One type of CA that has received increasing attention lately are smart speakers.
Objective:
The aim of our study was to identify use cases, user groups, and settings of use of smart speakers within the domains of healthcare and social care. In addition, we wanted to identify the main motivations of developers and designers for using this specific type of technology.
Methods:
A scoping review according to Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and Peters et al (2015) was conducted to provide an overview of the literature on smart speakers in health and social care. The literature search was carried out between February 2023 and March 2023 covering three databases (PubMed/ Medline, Scopus, and Sociological Abstracts) and was supplemented by consideration of grey literature via Google Scholar. Several key words were used, including the technology (e.g., voice assistant), product name (e.g., Amazon Alexa), and setting (healthcare or social care).
Results:
29 articles were included in the final review. These articles covered a diverse range of use cases in different settings, such as private homes, hospitals, long-term care facilities, or outpatient services. The main target group were patients, and particularly older users, followed by doctors and other medical personnel.
Conclusions:
The findings indicate that smart speakers offer divers applications in healthcare and social care, catering to various contexts and target groups. Their affordability and easy to operate interfaces make them appealing various stakeholders. It seems likely that due to technical progress in the field of AI and the market power of the companies behind the devices there will be more use cases of smart speakers in the (near) future.
Citation
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