Medical Text to Speech: Changing Healthcare for the Better

Recent advances in AI and deep learning are transitioning every industry possible and healthcare is no exception. From diagnostics to treatment management to drug discovery and production, every healthcare process is being revolutionized by artificial intelligence and its related technologies. Text to speech is the latest force in the same vein evolving the way we communicate; it is making speaking and listening more accessible to people everywhere. 

Beyond simply converting text into speech, the innovative technology leverages voice recognition to deliver a response in a synthetic voice that is realistic and natural-sounding. This helps in further enhancing digital health technology by speech-enabling health apps, websites, nurse call systems in hospitals, and portable health devices with life-like voices.

Another significant benefit of TTS is it assists with healthcare’s mission of bettering patient care through the use of assistive, digital tools. TTS not only helps healthcare providers boost their effectiveness across various areas but also improves accessibility for patients in healthcare facilities and within their homes.

Enabling healthcare providers to deliver high-quality care

Among the many advantages of text to speech technology for healthcare firms, the fact that it helps propel these businesses into a voice-first era serves as a big one. TTS reduces the workload of a healthcare professional in many ways, freeing them up to spend more time on quality face-to-face interactions. It also provides more comprehensive, accurate, and engaging healthcare to everyone, everywhere.

Cutting down costs and strengthening learning experiences

Doctors, physicians, and other healthcare practitioners can leverage TTS to create training materials, L&D presentations, videos on corporate compliance, and more to help their staff better understand their roles and improve performance. For example, medical officers can use text to speech to convert complex medical documentation into an interactive video or presentation, making it easier for the healthcare staff, including nurses, interns, and house staff, among others, to better understand what is being conveyed. 

TTS also eliminates the time and money spent by these individuals to manually create the training modules, enabling them to concentrate on improving patient care. Alongside, surgeons can use the technology to create eLearning modules for interns and medical students, enabling them to better grasp difficult lessons, medical terminology, and concepts.

Enhancing patient engagement

Moreover, healthcare organizations can leverage medical text to speech solutions to speech-enable their web and mobile content and increase patients’ understanding of complex medical topics. Furthermore, by embedding TTS into medical devices, such as equipment used for diagnostics or systems used to communicate data—which include experiment status in a lab, generated summary of patient charts, accessible literature, clinical documentation, and more—healthcare providers can streamline patient interactions, making them more personal and valuable. 

In fact, text to speech opens up numerous possibilities beyond just reading data. Messages can be tailored based on the audience, situation, personal preference, or other characteristics. By using an ai generated voice, medical organizations can also personalize and schedule outbound calls with reminders about upcoming appointments, cancellation policies, and more.This helps in increasing efficiency and patient satisfaction, reducing operational costs and no-shows, and leading to better overall scheduling management. 

Improving efficiency

In addition, TTS embedded in medical devices also helps increase healthcare efficiency. How? AI voices can be used to issue step-by-step audio instructions on how to use life-saving AED machines, enable hospital patients to call for a nurse or a physician, as well as provide instructions to medical personnel on how to assemble complicated surgical devices, among other tasks. Furthermore, by integrating text to speech voice assistants into the electronic health records (EHRs) of a healthcare facility, physicians and surgeons can easily pull up the past medical record of a patient to get a better understanding of how they are going to respond to a medication or surgical procedure. Medical professionals can also add an audio readback component to electronic prescribing, a clinical note, or patient notes, thereby, increasing accuracy and proficiency while eliminating errors.

That said, adding text to speech functionality to a pharmaceutical company or large not-for-profit healthcare system’s digital platform can extend corporate social responsibility (CSR), ultimately, boosting financial performance, improving sales, elevating reputation, increasing employee retention, as well as opening doors to capital and funding.

Increasing accessibility for people with special needs

When it comes to text to speech technology’s application for patients, there is a myriad of possibilities. Primarily, TTS serves as an assistive technology that helps individuals with sight, motion, and learning disabilities express their thoughts openly. It eliminates the need for such individuals to read and interpret text and enables them to communicate efficiently without spending on expensive specialized equipment.

For people with learning disabilities

Statistics suggest that about 15 to 20 percent of the worldwide population have a language-based learning disability, and Dyslexia is the most common. TTS gives such an audience a more efficient, practical solution to reading by allowing them to listen to written words and speech sounds through a read-aloud function. It also addresses the many problems experienced by individuals with reading disabilities, including, the misidentification of words, slow word reading, and connecting text that often results in difficulties with comprehension. Additionally, it also helps with proofreading. To put it simply, TTS tools improve learning and speech-disabled individuals’ ability to focus, retain information and improve comprehension, eventually, making them independent in their learning process. 

Read more about how TTS empowers those with Dyslexia in our blog here.

For people with visual impairments

An estimated two hundred eighty-five million people worldwide have some form of visual impairment, 39 million of whom are blind. Vision impairment is a huge burden on individuals in general, especially on students. They form constraints while trying to achieve daily activities and prevent students from following up with their class instructors, and even at home. TTS empowers such students to listen to any reading material, a book they desire, or an article they’re interested in, without having to copy it, translate it to a braille form, or any other language they understand to finally be able to access it. Another added benefit is that these tools enhance the students’ self-esteem in the long run. 

For individuals with medical conditions like ALS

Did you know that one in ten people deal with an acquired speech impairment because of illnesses like ALS, Parkinson’s, stroke, or brain injuries? With text to speech, it is now possible to recreate an individual’s voice from before the time when they were diagnosed. In other words, TTS gives people their voices back.

Furthermore, virtual assistants embedded with text to speech technology provide support to patients, who benefit from regular oral reminders or conversations. It helps automate patients’ appointment reminders, verbally reminds them to check their blood pressure in the form of an alert, and reads aloud important medical information such as descriptions of diseases, prescriptions, and drug information leaflets, among other use cases. TTS also increases the accessibility and usability of portable health trackers.

Murf TTS for the win

Today’s voice AI market is brimming with numerous text to speech solutions that enable people with disabilities to live normal lives by providing supportive applications and tools that they can utilize. This makes choosing the right TTS an arduous task. 

Murf’s TTS platform is designed to enhance digital accessibility for populations with learning and speech disabilities, visual impairments, and low literacy challenges across devices and platforms. Its AI voices can seamlessly integrate with existing assistive technology, delivering natural-sounding voices to support accessibility in the healthcare industry.

The benefits of using Murf Studio for healthcare-related voice needs are immense. With over 120+ natural-sounding AI voices available in 20+ languages and dialects, Murf provides a wide selection of voices tailored to various demographics—whether it's age, gender, or accent. This flexibility allows healthcare institutions to create voices that resonate with their audience, making it easier for patients to engage with important health information.

A key advantage in healthcare is Murf’s Customization through Voice Styles, enabling hospitals and clinics to tailor voiceovers for diverse applications, from training videos to patient instructions. Adjusting pitch, pace, intonation, and emotional depth allows for clear and effective communication, whether providing urgent care instructions or delivering patient education materials.

In the realm of medical documentation, healthcare providers often face time-consuming tasks such as entering patient information into electronic health records (EHR). Murf’s Customization through Variability allows multiple versions of a voiceover to be generated with a single click, giving healthcare professionals the ability to fine-tune their messages, such as dictating accurate medical notes or providing updates in a patient’s health record. This feature helps streamline speech recognition processes, ensuring precision and adaptability in a fast-paced healthcare setting.

For healthcare professionals who need even greater control, Murf offers Customization through Say It My Way, which allows providers to record their own rendition of medical instructions or notes. This feature ensures that the AI voice mimics their intonation, pace, and pitch, making it ideal for dictating personalized messages or highly sensitive patient information. This level of customization allows for enhanced clarity and helps physicians efficiently dictate medical notes with their personal touch, reducing the time spent on manual data entry.

In situations where specific words or phrases need emphasis, such as important medical warnings or instructions regarding medication dosage, Customization through Word-level Emphasis offers granular control over vocal delivery. This feature ensures that critical information in audio files such as emergency alerts or health precautions is conveyed with the necessary urgency and clarity, helping patients better comprehend and follow instructions.

Murf’s TTS technology is transforming the healthcare industry by making medical communication more accessible, streamlined, and efficient. Healthcare institutions can use Murf to create training videos, explainer content, or even automated voice reminders for patients, improving both provider workflows and patient outcomes. The integration of Murf voices with health trackers also allows patients to receive real-time, customized voice alerts for vital data like blood glucose or heart rate, enhancing their ability to monitor their health independently.

By addressing the time-consuming nature of medical documentation and providing advanced speech recognition capabilities, Murf is revolutionizing how healthcare professionals interact with TTS technology. As the industry continues to adopt and refine these solutions, the potential for enhancing patient care and operational efficiency grows exponentially. We have only scratched the surface of what’s possible with TTS in the healthcare sector, and the future holds even greater promise for innovation.