Are Apple and Amazon tech 'saviors' or same old story?

Patients at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston soon will use high-tech assistants to help them navigate their hospital stays. They could use Google Home to page a nurse, request spiritual care, or find out when their doctor is scheduled to arrive. Already, Beth Israel Deaconess has tested how both the Alexa and Google Home ambient listening devices might work with inpatients. The medical center is also considering how these technologies could be used to help physicians with tasks such as accessing patient data without having to click through electronic files. Such applications could be just the start of advances ushered in by consumer tech giants, says John D. Halamka, MD, MS, chief information officer for Beth Israel Deaconess and dean for technology at Harvard Medical School.