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The UK National Health Service hopes that its partnership with Amazon will help reduce demand for its services.
The news: Starting this week, when UK users ask health questions about their smart speaker Amazon, they'll automatically search for NHS official website, which is full of tips and advice on health. For example, you can ask your Echo device: "What are the symptoms of the flu?" Until now, he answered these types of questions based on a variety of popular answers.
The goal: The government believes that it will ease the burden of stretched doctors and hospitals, but also help elderly, disabled or blind patients who may have difficulty accessing this information otherwise, according to the British Secretary of Health, Matt Hancock. The United Kingdom already has an agreement with Babylon, an artificial intelligence application that provides basic answers to questions about symptoms.
Worries: It is feared that the voice service discourage really sick people from seeking appropriate medical help. The service will only provide answers to questions rather than the type of conversation you would have with a doctor.
The professional body of family physicians, the Royal College of General Practitioners, called for independent research to ensure the safety of the advice given. With Amazon's action, data privacy also raises concerns, particularly in an area as sensitive as health. However, the company insists that all data is encrypted and confidential and can be deleted by customers.
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