In this episode, Teri was invited on to the DataTalk Podcast by the host, Michael Delgado, to talk about all types of scenarios and implications of the intersection of voice technology and healthcare.

Enjoy the Show!

Teri is a Sport & Exercise Physician and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He has a particular interest in e-health innovation and the intersection of voice technology and healthcare. He is the Founder and host of “Voice-First Health”, a website and podcast that highlights the rapidly expanding intersection of Healthcare and Voice-First technologies. Teri and Michael got a little futuristic and painted some pictures of where we are going with voice technology.

Doing it All

• Teri teaches courses to help the next generation of physicians, runs two podcasts around voice technology, and so much more.
• He is passionate about what he does which makes things easier.

Getting Interested in Voice Technology

• His biggest passions are education, technology, and healthcare.
• Before medical school, he did an education degree and became a teacher before moving on to medical school.
• Around 3 years ago, he started hearing about voice technology. Being a techie at heart, he was intrigued by it. Back then Amazon Alexa was not available in Canada.
• He saw voice technology as a great way to bring his three passions together, and that’s when he decided to start his Alexa in Canada blog and podcast.
• He later launched his Voice in Canada Flash Briefing and the Voice First Health Podcast.

From Teaching to Medical School

• He holds four degrees; a Bachelor of Science in Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Biotechnology, a Master’s of Science in Experimental Medicine, an education degree, and also went to medical school. That was followed by his family practice residency and sports medicine fellowship.
• He’s been able to bring all of them together into the voice first space.

The Technology’s Potential

• He initially saw Alexa devices as a tool for education, but he later realized that it’s not just about education. The available applications take the technology to a whole new level.
• With the recent HIPAA Compliance of Alexa devices, they can now store personal health information which means that we can now start to use the devices as surrogates for care providers.
• The devices will gradually take on more of a role as a care aid or provider that can take care of people.
• There are lots of applications, other than voice applications, that can provide medical care, and they always have a physician, hospital, or company behind them. This is the same kind of way that voice applications will work in healthcare.

Vocal Biomarkers and the Ethical Issues Around Them

• The Mayo Clinic has been studying biomarkers for voice where a person could just be speaking and their smart speaker could pick up a health condition in the person. They are looking at coronary artery disease and seeing if they can pick it up from a person’s voice. The technology can also be leveraged for other types of diseases like Parkinson’s and others.
• There are some discussions on the ethics of voice technology.
• There are concerns about who owns the data that voice assistants/devices store and there are no correct answers right now.

 Teri’s Favorite Episodes on Voice First Health

• Teri is a big fan of Brian Roemmele, who is known as the Oracle of Voice. Brian is a technologist and futurist, and has been studying voice technology for decades.
• He assimilates knowledge from all different disciplines and puts them together to predict where voice technology is going to take society.
• Brian believes that we will get to a point where voice assistants will know us personally.

 Links and Resources in this Episode

• Brian Roemmele on Voice First Health
• Voice First Health Podcast
• DataTalk Podcast

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