Automated Monitoring of Outcomes

Farrokh Alemi, Richard Stephens, Theodore Parran, Shirley Llorens, Pallav Bhatt, Ali Ghadiri and Eric Eisenstein

Medical Decision Making, 1994, vol. 14, issue 2, 180-187

Abstract: This paper suggests a new approach for lowering follow-up costs, improving the delivery of health care, and monitoring treatment outcomes. An automated telephone follow-up system that calls, identifies, and interviews clients is an alternative method for monitoring patients that may be both reliable and cost-effective. To test the viability of such a system, the authors monitored a patient population that has historically been shown to be difficult to follow: recovering drug users and alcoholics. Forty-two subjects were asked to call the computer and complete interviews on a weekly basis for five months. Clients answered 25 recorded questions by pressing the keys on their telephone pads. The computer automatically analyzed the clients' answers and estimated a probability of relapse for each client. In addition, the computer automatically called subjects who failed to complete interviews at the scheduled times. The study showed that self-reported data collected by a computer are as reliable as data obtained through a written questionnaire and that clients are more willing to respond to computer interviews than to mailed written questionnaires. This study also provides pre liminary data on the predictive ability of a questionnaire for predicting relapse. Key words: computer interview; automated monitoring; drug abuse; evaluation of treatment outcomes; telecommunication; Bayesian prediction. (Med Decis Making 1994;14:180-187)

Date: 1994
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:medema:v:14:y:1994:i:2:p:180-187

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X9401400211

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