design and development of an interactive voice ...

DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE SYSTEM FOR HEALTH CARE SUPPORT IN NIGERIA BY OLADELE FEMI K REG NO: TP/11/12/H/2494

BACKGROUND • Health care in Nigeria and most African countries is far from being an ideal system, there are very few health care systems that are up to acceptable standard and those are quite expensive and not affordable to the average citizen. • The other affordable ones are the federal government owned teaching hospitals which are over-crowded and usually leaves patients frustrated.

PROBLEM STATEMENT The provision of such a system emanates due to the following challenges in the existing methods: • Gross inefficiency and time wastage in the existing method of health care delivery especially in federal government owned teaching hospitals.

PROBLEM STATEMENT • Unnecessary stress being experienced by the patients who most of the time do not get the needed care on time or at all. • Extra cost being incurred by patients to access state-of-the-art medical facilities usually in the developed countries.

PROPOSED SOLUTION Creation of an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System that will perform the following functions: • Grant Patients access to medical treatment and counseling via the mobile phone. • Provide database access for patient information storage and retrieval. • Reduce the cost of access to quality health care services.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES This project aims to develop a system that will serve as an addition to existing Health Management Information Systems to allow fast and effective access to health care through Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Technology. • To Design and develop an IVR Server.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES • To write AGI (Asterisk Gateway Interface) Scripts to customize the IVR system to health care scenarios. • To collect and retrieve patient information via the IVR system to and from a database.

SCOPE OF STUDY • The scope of study of this project is limited to cardiovascular disease prevention but can easily be modified and expanded to handle other health challenges. • University College Hospital, Ibadan a tertiary health care institution that offers world-class training, research and services was used as case study • This study seeks to integrate Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) in the above named hospital.

DESIGN PROCESS • Asterisk (an open source Voice Over IP framework) is used to develop the system. • Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI) Scripts were written in PHP to extend the basic functionality of the base asterisk framework. • MySQL Database was used as backend for storing information and the database was accessed via AGI Scripts. • Cepstral Text-to-Speech was used to convert text to speech.

SYSTEM FLOWCHART

JUSTIFICATION OF PROJECT • We have over six billion mobile phone users worldwide and 143,000,000 users in Nigeria this explosion in cell phone use represents an important resource for mobile health care. • Innovations in mobile health technology will help address barriers to cardiovascular disease prevention and management • Trials conducted in Developed Countries have shown that IVR-based interventions can be effective in cardiovascular disease prevention by promoting physical activity and improving blood pressure diet and cholesterol levels.

INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE (IVR) • Is a technology that automates routine customer service interactions by allowing callers to interact using touch tone digits or voice. • A basic example is an automated attendant presenting callers with a recorded menu and gets response by digit selection. • It eliminates the need for a live operator to handle calls.

SIGN UP FORM

PROFILE UPDATE FORM

IVR MONITOR

IVR DATABASE BACKEND (MYSQL)

IVR DIALPLAN

SUMMARY • Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems have mostly found extensive use in Corporate Organization's customer support operations but its capabilities have not been explored in health care in Nigeria. • This project seeks to put IVR to extensive and productive use in the Health Care Service Delivery in Nigeria.

CONCLUSION • Mobile Health IVR systems are essential platforms that can be put to maximal use in the health service delivery in Nigerian hospitals like it has been done abroad. • This ensures better customer satisfaction, research enhancement, cost saving and ultimately save lives that could have been lost due to poor health care availability.

REFERENCES Mobile Health Devices as Tools for Cardiovascular Risk Reduction and Disease Management John D. Piette, PhD1,2,3; Justin List, MD4; Preet Rana, MLIS,5 Whitney Townsend, MLIS;5 Michele Heisler, MD, MPA1,2,3,4 Center for Clinical Management Research, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

Nigerian Communications Commission Subscriber Statistics http://www.ncc.gov.ng/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=125:art-statistics-subscriberdata&catid=65:cat-web-statistics&Itemid=73