Title: IVR for OpenMRS
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system is designed to automate a wide range of services. It is a sophisticated application of voice processing technology that creates a link between a person and a computer database, using a touch-tone telephone. The system, using pre-recorded voice files, prompts the caller to enter commands by speaking or pressing buttons, so that he or she can ask questions and make requests for information. The system has direct accesses to the “host” computer to retrieve the appropriate information, which can be instantly replied back to caller. The information can also be transmitted through fax, call back, or e-mail.
Topic of IVR and SMS communication was mentioned before in OpenMRS Talk, so there is obviously some interest in this feature:
I would like to hear your opinion about IVR. Do you think this feature would be beneficial for OpenMRS?
Benefit(s) to the OpenMRS Community
Here is a publication about IVR use in healthcare, with sources and references:
And here are the benefits from this article:
- it contributes to the professional image of the hospital and creates a positive “first impression” for callers.
- It enables hospitals to offer consistent, 24-hour, high-quality patient service and increase efficiency, productivity, and profitability through automation.
- It increases patient satisfaction and accessibility, providing accurate and reliable information on a wide variety of topics with easy access to data for analysis with customized, personalized scripts.
- It relieves the administrative staff as well as physicians of routine customer interactions, such as information requests, as there is no live customer service contact, unless requested
- it enables hospital staff to concentrate on more pressing administrative matters and to focus on issues that require human involvement and individual attention.
- increases productivity as it extends hospital business hours around the clock without 24-hour staffing.
- A speech-enabled interface makes navigation faster and easier and provides convenient caller services
- It eliminates the risk that patients will experience busy signals or unanswered calls by reducing on-hold lines and the number of abandoned calls.
- The average duration of the patient calls will fall overtime as they become more skilled in using the system, and this will reduce the telephone service charges.
- As the usage of the system increases, it will serve more patients with less assistance from the hospital staff
- IVR solutions reduce the costs associated with patient service and administration
- An IVR system can communicate directly with a range of host computers and databases to access all the information a patient might need during a self-service transaction
- In many cases,when needed, it can automatically keep track of the number of calls each sector receives and the total amount of time those calls lasted
- It also automatically tracks detailed call statistics that enable users to create, save, and print a standard set of reports and provide real-time monitoring and system management.
- The software also support English,Spanish, French, and other languages simultaneously, without having to hire multiple bilingual staff members in order to offer global call automation applications, as it allows the patient to decide the particular language to be used for transactions.
Here is the report from controlled trials with IVR:
“An opportunity for the use of IVR exists in nearly every healthcare setting. Its use it in acute care where newly discharged patients are enrolled in disease appropriate IVR systems may improve the transition in care from the hospital to the home and lead to reduced readmission rates. The overburdened primary care setting may benefit from reduced staff workloads and enhance patient understanding of their condition and the results of their lifestyle choices. Specialty care may implement an IVR system which monitors patient’s clinical data and provides guidance accordingly.”
Risks of IVR
I didn’t find the specifics risks of IVR for healthcare, but here are the common problems with these systems:
- Incorrect interpretation – IVR systems rely on numbers and selections input via the customers’ telephone keypad. Mistakes can easily be made, with fingers mashing the wrong button or in the middle of typing out a long account number.
- Takes too long – While it only takes a moment to ask a friendly receptionist what a business’ hours are, waiting through an entire menu of options just to find the right extension to reach a live person is a waste of customers’ time. While listing a menu of options may seem convenient for customers, it becomes an inconvenience when the choices aren’t clear or don’t fit the action a customer wants to take.
- Impersonal – IVR systems also lose merit because they’re impersonal. There’s no friendly voice saying “Hello!” when a customer calls. Instead, it’s a computerized voice that speaks what it was programmed to say. There’s no chance of the caller being remembered from a previous interaction, or for special exceptions or solutions to be made.
High level project plan
Right now, we need to know what is the real demand/interest within the community for adding IVR functionality to OpenMRS. This would allow us to move on further with a project plan.