Baxter’s Voalte Linq powered by Scotty assistant, is a lightweight, voice-activated wearable badge designed to support efficient hospital communication between care teams and allow them to focus on direct patient care.
RT’s Three Key Takeaways
- Product Launch: Baxter unveiled Voalte Linq powered by Scotty assistant, a lightweight, voice-activated wearable designed to streamline care team communication and improve patient care efficiency.
- Connected Care Expansion: Voalte Linq integrates with Baxter’s existing care communication solutions to promote a fully connected hospital environment, enhancing workflow automation and real-time decision-making.
- Impact on Patient Safety: By enabling hands-free communication and rapid response capabilities, Voalte Linq aims to reduce communication delays and support patient and staff safety across healthcare settings.
Baxter International Inc introduced Voalte Linq device powered by Scotty assistant, the company’s first voice-activated technology, at the 2025 HIMSS Global Healthcare Conference. Voalte Linq, a lightweight, wearable badge, is powered by Scotty assistant, a voice-activated technology, to better enable efficient, streamlined communication between care teams, with the goal of freeing up more of their time and energy to focus on direct patient care.
Voalte Linq powered by Scotty assistant is Baxter’s latest innovation in connected care to provide health systems with an ecosystem that promotes full connectivity for care teams and their patients. With its network of connected devices, Baxter is better enabling connected hospital environments through the sharing and integration of data across devices, systems and healthcare institutions. A connected care environment can streamline care coordination, support informed decision-making and enhance the clinician and patient experience.
Voalte Linq powered by Scotty assistant can be integrated with existing products from Baxter’s care communications suite, a subset of its connected care portfolio, including Voalte Mobile and Voalte Nurse Call. Voalte Mobile is a set of mobile applications that communicates actionable patient information and alerts directly to staff members’ smartphones to streamline care coordination, while Voalte Nurse Call works as a hospital call bell system that sends detailed patient notifications directly to care teams. With the addition of Voalte Linq powered by Scotty assistant, these solutions can work in tandem to help enhance communication and activate workflows across healthcare settings with speed and accuracy.
“The launch of Voalte Linq powered by Scotty assistant marks an exciting step for Baxter’s connected care evolution, with the introduction of our first voice-activated technology,” said Donny Patel, president, Connected Care and Technical Services at Baxter. “As one of the first in the industry to leverage technology of this kind to drive workflow automation for hospital settings, we aim to transform how care teams communicate with one another and their patients.”
High-quality patient care requires effective, efficient, and reliable communication.1 However, many clinical teams and other healthcare staff still rely on outdated systems that often result in communication delays, such as pagers, intercoms and landlines. These antiquated devices require the disruption of at least two staff members waiting to make and receive calls, interrupting workflows and affecting patient care.2 Furthermore, communication failures were identified as the root cause of more than 60 percent of sentinel events, according to the Joint Commission.3
Voice-activated technology is an emerging way for care teams to address these challenges. Activated by a simple ‘Hey Scotty,’ Voalte Linq aims to:
- Reduce the burden on care teams: Clear, reliable voice-activated technology, coupled with a comfortable design, will enable care teams to communicate quickly while on the move.
- Enhance IT and operational efficiency: Ability to integrate with other Baxter solutions will help promote automated workflows utilizing assignments and directories.
- Support patient and staff safety: The ability to initiate Voalte Nurse Call duress workflow via voice-activated technology or speed-dial a pre-defined number with a configurable button may help support rapid response during critical moments.
Voalte Linq powered by Scotty assistant can be used to support facility-wide communication or unit-specific communication, such as in the Operating Room, Emergency Department, and Labor and Delivery.
The device is expected to have general availability in the US in the second half of 2025, according to Baxter.
References from Baxter
- Carreon HF, Dutra D. Inpatient outcomes of a hands-free, wireless communication device implementation. Computers, Informatics, Nursing. 2020; 38(7): 323-328.
- Holland TM. 5 challenges impeding effective communication in healthcare. Insights. August 30, 2021. https://insights.samsung.com/2021/08/30/5-challenges-impeding-effective-communication-in-healthcare/
- The Joint Commission. Reducing handoff communication failures and inequities in healthcare. The Joint Commission. August 22, 2024. https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/news-and-multimedia/news/2024/08/reducing-handoff-communication-failures-and-inequities-in-healthcare/