Sonde Health Receives Patent for Voice-Based Diagnostic Solution

Sonde Health has received a patent for its voice-based diagnostic tech, which uses vocal biomarkers to help doctors and patients make more informed healthcare decisions. The Sonde platform essentially functions as an advance warning system, analyzing short speech segments to spot vocal anomalies that could point to a more serious medical issue.

Though not a sufficient diagnostic tool on its own, Sonde’s tech can prompt additional testing and increase the likelihood that doctors will identify a condition in its early stages. That, in turn, will lead to more efficient care that better responds to a patient’s needs.  

The patent itself was awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and covers a range of related utilities, including the combination of vocal biometrics with other sensors and the platform’s recommendation and scheduling system for follow-up care. The platform also uses voice recognition for identity verification.

According to Sonde, the tech can spot everything from depression to dementia, and needs only a six-second voice sample to come to a conclusion. 

“This patent strengthens our mission to harness voice as a vital sign so health can be quickly, accurately and inexpensively monitored through snippets of speech,” said Sonde Health Co-Founder and COO Jim Harper. “There is an incredibly broad base of voice-capable consumer devices that are compatible with our platform and enable us to prioritize patient data security as a core feature.”

While voice recognition has become increasingly popular in the healthcare industry, the technology has typically been deployed for identification and clinical dictation rather than diagnostics. Companies like Nuance Communications have also leveraged speech recognition to develop Electronic Health Records that allow for hands-free data entry.

Grand View Research has previously predicted healthcare would be one of the primary industries driving the speech and voice recognition market to $31.83 billion by 2025. 

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November 13, 2019 – by Eric Weiss