An Apple a day keeps the doctor away …
Phone-based personal assistants (like Apple’s Siri and Samsung’s S-Voice) are reportedly declining in popularity. At the same time, personal assistants associated with voice computing in the home (i.e. Google Home and Alexa) are becoming increasingly popular.
Physicians are breaking this mold. They’re using voice assistants to make patient care more efficient. A recent report from Decision Resources Group found that 23% of doctors use voice assistants for work purposes.
Seventy-eight percent of positive respondents use voice assistants to search on their smartphones. In addition, almost half (48%) of doctors who use voice assistants dictate notes. Perhaps the most telling finding from the report is that 29% of physicians who use voice assistants do so as part of an electronic health record (EHR) system. Physicians use of voice to document medical histories indicates that voice assistants may well be on the way to becoming an integral piece of doctors’ day-to-day processes. This creates a tremendous opportunity for brands looking to gain traction in the healthcare industry.
How can digital brands become essential resources in healthcare?
It’s all about matching the right digital experience to the right consumer. Doctors are latching on to voice assistants because they are easy, efficient, and can provide answers at a moment’s notice. The hard part for brands is to ensure that voice assistants and app integrations with them remain quick, easy, and efficient, to maintain a positive digital experience.
A seamless digital experience is necessary for all audiences across all industries and verticals. The stakes, however, are raised when it comes to the healthcare industry. There is simply no room for error. Integrations with personal assistants add a new layer of customer interaction to explore. Having this option is great for brands, but only if utilized correctly. Doctors aren’t going to put up with a bad user experience in-app. No one will. In fact, one in four mobile apps are abandoned after just one use.
One company that understands this fact is MyOwnMed. MyOwnMed provides patients’ families real-time updates about their loved ones – straight to their smartphones or computers.
Changes to the healthcare industry have made MyOwnMed a possibility. Doctors are becoming more technologically advanced and comfortable communicating via technology like voice assistants, so patients and families have become accustomed to the idea too. MyOwnMed builds on this trend, acting as a bridge of communication between doctors, patients, and families.
When looking to test the product, the team at MyOwnMed realized they didn’t have the appropriate resources, causing QA processes to be informal. To counter this challenge, MyOwnMed turned to Applause for functional testing. Dana Wershiner, senior program manager at MyOwnMed, says that the worldwide presence and vast device library of Applause makes the crowdtesting services extremely valuable.
“The fact that we could have testers in Beijing, China as well as local here in the US was a big plus for us, and it continues to improve our process and improve our product because we have that local testing outside of the United States. That’s why we continue to use Applause,” said Wershiner.
Applause’s community is all around the world. With more than 300,000 testers spread out across the globe, Applause’s device library is massive and growing by the day, already featuring more than 2.4 million different devices.
With only a single opportunity to impress, brands need to ensure their first touch is flawless. Not only do experiences need to be designed and developed well, they need to be tested early, often, and thoroughly.
Those in healthcare are connecting with brands and apps in new ways, but they are a discerning audience. Only the brands that cultivate positive digital experiences will be able to keep their business and expand their loyalty.
Find out how Applause has helped healthcare companies like Syύs and MyOwnMed with digital testing.
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