Cigna is the latest big healthcare organization deploying voice-activated applications for Echo from Amazon and Google Home, following the lead of Atrium Health (formerly Carolinas HealthCare), Boston’s Children’s Hospital, Mayo Clinic and Northwell Health, among others.

Cigna, the large health insurer which last week agreed to acquire pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co. in a cash and stock deal worth $67 billion, rolled out yesterday Answers by Cigna. The voice-activated application for Alexa, Amazon’s digital assistant for Echo and Dot devices, lets users ask more than 150 common healthcare questions and get an answer.

Cigna says Alexa will be able to help consumers understand healthcare jargon. The insurer points to a 2017 survey on health literacy that found 20% of respondents did not understand the word “premium” and 66% did not understand the word “formulary.” A formulary is a list of prescription drugs that are covered by a healthcare plan.

“Voice control offers a way for Cigna to educate and engage people about healthcare in a way that is convenient for them,” says Cigna vice president of digital marketing Rowena Track. “The applications for voice control are expanding every day and we see great potential as we continue to simplify and personalize our customers’ healthcare journeys.”

The Answers by Cigna for Alexa is available for free in the Amazon Alexa Skills Store or by saying, “Alexa, enable Answers by Cigna.” To use Answers by Cigna, users can ask their health-related questions and receive an easy-to-understand response.

While Cigna isn’t providing details on its future plans for voice applications, Track says, “Our work with Amazon Alexa provides us with experience and expertise as we evolve our voice platform and introduce new personalized services throughout the year,” Track says.

An estimated 10 million consumers now own an Alexa-powered device from Amazon.com, according to market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, and eMarketer estimates that up to 37 million consumers are now using voice-activated assistant devices for such tasks as listening to music, getting the news, shopping and controlling home lighting and garage doors.

Voice search through devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home can help hospitals deliver care more efficiently in many ways, says Carla E. Small, senior director of Boston Children Hospital’s Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator.

In a recent article for the Harvard Business Review, Small said Boston Children’s is using voice activation tools in several areas of the hospital, learning the limitations of voice search and digital assistants, and learning if doctors will use the voice-activated tools.

“Simple voice-dictation software such as Dragon that is used to capture clinical notes in electronic medical records is now fairly common in clinical settings,” Small writes. “But voice assistants can do much more—for example, quickly surfacing actionable information from medical records and offering it to clinical teams.”

Boston Children’s has been testing voice activation in several pilots since 2016. For example, in the intensive care unit where a clinician’s hands are scrubbed and gloved, voice activation helps nurses ask for help and information such as “Who is the charge nurse on 7 South?” or using voice to access care guidelines and protocols, Small says.

Boston’s Children’s also is using voice applications to for pediatric organ transplant operations such as for pre- and post-surgery care checklists, and for KidsMD, an Alexa application now used by more than 100,000 by parents and caregivers who can ask Alexa for symptoms of common illnesses such as cold or ear ache.

“There are many benefits to voice in health care, but Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator (IDHA) sees one supporting clinician and patient decision making as one of its greatest potentials,” she writes.

It’s still early for the deployment of voice applications in healthcare and among the challenges health organizations face can include recruiting reluctant physicians to try a new technology. A recent survey of Boston Children’s pediatricians found that only 48% of pediatricians would be willing to deploy the voice activation within their practice while 36% were undecided and 16% were against using it.

Patient privacy and HIPPA compliance also present potential roadblocks. Another challenge is deploying voice activation in a loud and critical environment such as an emergency room where key answers to patient care questions might not be heard by everyone.

But at some point voice activation and digital assistants may well be deployed widely throughout healthcare, she writes. “Over half of the physicians we surveyed already turn to online resources and guidelines when they are unsure of the appropriate treatment options, so we see great promise in well-curated, voice-activated decision-support tools,” she writes.

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