ElevenLabs Text-to-Speech for Clinical Projects
Quick-start skill for OpenClaw Clinical Hackathon participants. Use ElevenLabs TTS for patient-facing voice: instructions, reminders, discharge info, and accessible content.
Prerequisites
- ELEVENLABS_API_KEY — Set in environment or in
~/.openclaw/openclaw.json under skills.entries.elevenlabs.apiKey (or env.ELEVENLABS_API_KEY). - Get a key at ElevenLabs (free tier available).
When to Use This Skill
- Patient discharge or aftercare instructions (spoken).
- Medication or appointment reminders.
- Multilingual health messages (e.g. 30+ languages).
- Accessibility: turning written clinical text into clear speech.
- Long-form content (e.g. patient education) with natural, empathetic tone.
How to Use
- Ensure the TTS tool is available
If your OpenClaw setup has a text-to-speech tool (e.g. tts_text_to_speech or similar), use it with ElevenLabs as the provider. The tool will use ELEVENLABS_API_KEY when configured for ElevenLabs.
- When the user asks for spoken output
- Prefer short, clear sentences for instructions and reminders.
- For medical terms, use ElevenLabs’ pronunciation controls or a pronunciation dictionary if available to improve accuracy.
- Suggest a calm, professional voice for clinical content.
- If calling the API directly
- Endpoint:
POST https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/text-to-speech/{voice_id} - Headers:
xi-api-key: , Content-Type: application/json - Body:
{"text": "", "model_id": "eleven_multilingual_v2"} (or eleven_flash_v2_5 for low latency). - Prefer eleven_multilingual_v2 for non-English or mixed-language clinical text.
Best Practices for Clinical TTS
- Tone: Use a warm, clear, professional voice; avoid overly casual or dramatic tones.
- Chunking: Break long text into short paragraphs or bullets to improve clarity and pacing.
- Language: Set the correct language (or use a multilingual model) for the patient’s preferred language.
- Sensitive content: Do not include PHI or other sensitive data in log messages or external calls; keep API usage consistent with your security and compliance setup.
Quick Reference
| Use case | Suggestion |
|---|
| ----------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| Short reminders | eleven_flash_v2_5 for speed |
| Long-form / multilingual | eleven_multilingual_v2 |
| Medical terminology | Use pronunciation hints or dictionary if supported |
Getting Help