Implementing voice communication technology in patient applications

Abstract: AstraZeneca as a biopharmaceutical company performs clinical trials on human volunteers every day. It is crucial that these participants complete the trial to maximise the medical learning from the trial but also to decrease the cost for AstraZeneca. Dropout's from clinical trials can not be eliminated but as a part of the work that AstraZeneca is doing to reduce dropouts, this thesis investigates the possibility to implement voice control into patient applications. The goal is to increase the usability of the systems used in clinical trials and in return reduce dropouts and increase medical knowledge. This thesis results in a discussion that can be used for future work on this topic. Opportunities that a voice-controlled system brings, together with its limitations are presented and results in a discussion regarding "data ownership". One of the main conclusions is that a voice-controlled system would bring a lot of positive features but that either the technology or the authorities are ready for such a system today. A suggested way forward can be to start trying clinical trials, where free-text responses are used for some questions, instead of fixed responses. This can help show the authorities the benefits of such a system and motivate them to open up for more technology.