Amazon Web Services is tapping into its voice technology once again with the launch of the Amazon Transcribe Medical, an automated speech recognition service that will let developers add medical diction and documentation to their apps. 

The streaming API tool is designed to cater to medical and pharmacological terms, thereby allowing doctors, clinicians and researchers to dictate into it. It also has a natural speech feature, which can transcribe a doctor-patient visit. 

The new feature is an add-on to Amazon Transcribe, which was included on the list of AWS’ HIPAA-eligible services in November of 2018. 

WHY IT MATTERS 

It’s no secret clinical documentation takes up a larger portion of a physician’s day, and it contributes to stress. Last year researchers from the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine found a 45.5% year-over-year increase in physician burnout, with EHR as the leading culprit. 

A recent Mayo Clinic report also linked burnout with a suboptimal EHR experience. Now more and more tech companies are looking to tackle this issue, Amazon included. 

THE LARGER TREND 

This isn’t the only big tech giant that is interested in easing clinical burden. In November Google Health demoed a new EHR-like documentation tool. It includes a more integrated charting system that aims to make it easier for doctors to search for a variety of metrics and notes.

Additionally, there are scores of AI-powered clinical documentation tools. One such device comes from Robin Healthcare, and sits in a doctor’s office and draft notes from clinicians' spoken conversations. The voice-enabled AI device is designed to help doctors and clinicians write clinical notes. Notable is another company in the space, and has an AI-powered smartwatch for doctors that will automatically link to the EHR. 

ON THE RECORD 

"Extreme accuracy in clinical documentation is critical to workflows and overall caregiver satisfaction," Jacob Geers, solutions strategist at Cerner Corporation, said in a statement. "By leveraging Amazon Transcribe Medical's transcription API, Cerner is in initial development of a digital voice scribe that automatically listens to clinician-patient interactions and unobtrusively captures the dialogue in text form. From there, our solution will intelligently translate the concepts for entry into the codified component in the Cerner EHR system."