1. DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTERACTIVE
VOICE RESPONSE SYSTEM FOR
HEALTH CARE SUPPORT IN NIGERIA
BY
OLADELE FEMI K
REG NO: TP/11/12/H/2494
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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-subscriber-
data&catid=65:cat-web-statistics&Itemid=73
