Express Scripts, Atrium Health, and Cigna are three of six organizations adopting newly HIPAA-compliant skills kits to help patients and providers, Rachel Jiang, head of Alexa health and wellness at Amazon, recently announced.

Alexa Skills Set for Healthcare

According to Jiang, the Alexa Skills Kit enables select covered entities and business associates to build Alexa skills that transmit and receive protected health information as part of an invitation-only program.

Six new Alexa healthcare skills from  providers, payors, pharmacy benefit managers, and digital health coaching companies are  operating in Amazon’s HIPAA-eligible environment.

New Healthcare Skills

Jiang blogged that every day developers are “inventing with voice to build helpful and convenient experiences for their customers”. She said these new skills are designed to help customers manage a variety of healthcare needs at home simply using voice – whether it’s booking a medical appointment, accessing hospital post-discharge instructions, checking on the status of a prescription delivery, or other tasks.

The newest healthcare skills  are:

• Express Scripts  Members can check the status of a home delivery prescription and can request Alexa notifications when their prescription orders are shipped.
• Cigna Health Today Eligible employees with one of Cigna’s large national accounts manage their health improvement goals and increase opportunities for earning personalized wellness incentives.
• My Children’s Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Parents and caregivers of children in the ERAS program at Boston Children’s Hospital can provide their care teams updates on recovery progress and receive information regarding their post-op appointments.
• Swedish Health Connect Patients can find an urgent care center near them and schedule a same-day appointment.
• Atrium Health Customers in North and South Carolina can find an urgent care location near them and schedule a same-day appointment.
• Livongo Members can query their last blood sugar reading, blood sugar measurement trends, and receive insights and “Health Nudges” personalized to them.

Amazon continues to request help from healthcare providers, payers, and others in determining and developing new skills Alexa can do.