Generic Concept for Integrating Voice Assistance Into Smart Therapeutic Interventions

Abstract

Therapeutic Interventions (TIs) play an important role in modern medical and psychological treatments, but their integration into the digital world still shows deficits, e.g., in the integration of the auditory interface. Initiatives to integrate this interface into existing Internet- and Mobile-Based Interventions (IMIs) are largely focused on a small group of Voice Assistants (VAs) and their specific capabilities. To mitigate these drawbacks, the presented concept seamlessly integrates arbitrary VAs into the treatment process of TIs. To this end, an architecture - including a discussion of relevant requirements - is presented that, on the one hand, uses VAs as the only point of contact with patients and, on the other hand, provides a comprehensive web-based backend for Healthcare Providers (HCPs). Based on the architecture, a proof-of-concept implementation using Amazon Alexa is presented. Finally, it is discussed that the scenario addressed and the solution presented have great potential, but still need a lot of work and technical considerations.