Automated Telephone Systems Research Articles

Incidental Finding of Tumor While Investigating Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: Ethical Considerations and Practical Strategies

High-resolution neuroimaging modalities are used often in studies involving healthy volunteers. Subsequently, a significant increase in the incidental discovery of asymptomatic intracranial abnormalities raised the important ethical issues of when follow-up and treatment may be necessary. We examined the literature to establish a practical set of criteria for approaching incidental findings. Our objective is to develop an algorithm for when follow-up may be important and to provide recommendations that would increase the likelihood of follow-up. A systematic literature search was performed using the PubMed and MEDLINE databases to identify articles describing brain tumors and intracranial aneurysms. The treatment algorithm we present suggests that incidental intracranial masses suspicious for glioma should be biopsied or resected, while other masses are to be followed with serial imaging based on the expected growth pattern. Lack of follow-up can result in adverse outcomes that can be mitigated by using technology to facilitate communication and improve follow-up care. The importance of training physicians to be good communicators is also stressed. New technology including automated telephone systems, texting and email will improve access to patients and hopefully encourage compliance and follow-up.

The Use Of Automated Telephone Interfaces With Customers By Local Organizations: Best Practices And Exploratory Investigation Of Usage

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Automated telephone systems (ATS) have been criticized by customers as a frustrating way to interact with an organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This study seeks to discover ATS best practices, assess how many local organizations (as opposed to 1-800 call centers) are utilizing various ATSs, and determine which ATS best practices these local organizations are adopting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>A list of 35 best practices were found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>An exploratory examination of 400 organizations in a mid-sized mid-western city revealed that very few use an advanced ATS, with 51% using a simple answering machine. The adoption of best practices by these organizations was quite varied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Managerial recommendations as well as future research suggestions are offered.</span></span></p>

Commentary: Encouraging Clinicians to Incorporate Longitudinal Patient-Reported Symptoms in Routine Clinical Practice

Commentary: Encouraging Clinicians to Incorporate Longitudinal Patient-Reported Symptoms in Routine Clinical Practice

How to write health dialog for a talking computer

Automated dialogue systems delivered over the telephone offer a promising approach to delivering health-related interventions to populations of individuals at low-cost. Over the past two decades, an automated telephone system called Telephone-Linked Care or TLC has been successfully designed and evaluated by the authors and their colleagues. This work has resulted in over twenty systems for various health-related conditions and lifestyle behaviors. This paper describes our approach to developing and writing dialogue for these automated telephone systems, including determining the program objectives, defining the target population, and selecting a theory of behavior change to guide the intervention. Both macro and micro issues are considered in constructing dialogue systems that are engaging for the target population, easy to use, and effective at promoting positive health behaviors and outcomes.

Risk‐behavior reporting by blood donors with an automated telephone system

Donor risk-behavior assessment is important for blood safety. Few evaluations of automated telephone systems for eliciting risk exposure among voluntary blood donors have been reported. A modified risk-behavior questionnaire was presented after donation via an automated telephone polling system to 805 of 15,092 Hong Kong Chinese voluntary blood donors. Risk-behavior rates were compared to those of all other donors (14,287) simultaneously completing the questionnaire in a pencil-and-paper format. The telephone group included proportionally more women (46.3% vs. 44.9%), previous donors (93.3% vs. 83.6%), and sexually inactive donors (66.5% vs. 71.2%) with lower educational achievement (60.7% vs. 54.5%). The telephone group demonstrated fewer missing data (mean 1.3%, range 0.4%-3.1% vs. mean 9.8%, range 8.0%-14.2%) and more complete demographic detailing, probably accounting for the demographic differences. The telephone group reported higher prevalence rates of needle or syringe sharing (1.5% vs. 0.3%), homosexual and/or bisexual intercourse (4.1% vs. 1.3%), knowing or suspecting that partner had intercourse with another during past year (12.4% vs. 8.5%), and future intention to use blood donation as a means to test for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV; 19.1% vs. 13.7%). There was no difference in knowledge of the HIV window period or proportions visiting or using condoms with commercial sex workers between telephone and pencil-and-paper groups. This survey with automated telephone screening of potential blood donors revealed increased reporting of risk exposure relative to commonly used paper-and-pencil methods. This raises questions of possible underreporting of risk among blood donors screened by paper questionnaire and perhaps face-to-face interview.

Self-Administered Questions by Telephone

Over the past 25 years, computerization has swept over survey research, making computer-assisted data collection the de facto standard in the United States and Western Europe (Couper and Nicholls 1998). The move to computerization may now be ushering in a golden age for self-administered questions; the newest methods of survey data collection to emerge have reduced the role of the interviewer or eliminated it entirely, allowing the respondents to interact directly with the computer. The new modes of self-administered data collection include Web surveys and a technology variously referred to as interactive voice response (IVR), touchtone data entry (TDE), and telephone audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (T-ACASI). These different labels refer to the same data collection technology in which the computer plays a recording of the questions to the respondents over the telephone, who indicate their answers by pressing keys on the handsets (Appel, Tortora, and Sigman 1992; Blyth 1997; Frankovic 1994; Gribble et al. 2000; Harrell and Clayton 1991; Phipps and Tupek 1990; Turner et al. 1996b, 1998). We will refer to this method of data collection as IVR, the term used at Gallup and at most market research firms. Automated telephone systems for gathering nonsurvey information are now widespread (e.g., for catalog sales, airline reservations, banking, and so on)

Effects of Aging, Message Repetition, and Note-Taking on Memory for Health Information

This study investigated whether repetition improves older adults' memory for health service appointment messages delivered by automated telephone systems. Whereas imposed repetition reduces age differences in memory (Morrow, Leirer, Carver, Tanke, & McNally, 1999), the present study examined the effect of optional repetition. Both older and younger participants in Experiment 1 chose to repeat messages. More repetition, higher cognitive ability (working memory and processing speed), and younger age were associated with better memory for appointment information. The effect of age was eliminated when cognitive ability, but not repetition, was controlled. Thus, older adults used optional repetition in automated systems, but this strategy did not eliminate age differences in memory. In Experiment 2, older as well as younger adults took accurate notes and also repeated messages. Both note-taking and message repetition improved memory for the messages but did not reduce age differences. These findings suggest that older as well as younger adults use presentation strategies in automated messaging systems. Older adults may not take full advantage of these strategies, perhaps because of age-related declines in self-initiated or metacognitive processes.

CDC and ATSDR electronic information resources for health officers

This article catalogs some of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) more important information resource offerings, which make public health information accessible via computer and automated telephone systems and on electronic media (diskette and CD-ROM). We review mechanisms for (1) finding and retrieving CDC reports, (2) querying CDC's numeric data files, (3) transmitting surveillance and other data files to CDC, (4) exchanging electronic mail with CDC staff, and (5) disseminating state and local public health information and data by using CDC tools. Each resource is followed with a section on how to obtain access to these resources.

CDC and ATSDR electronic information resources for health officers.

This article catalogues some of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) more important information resource offerings, which make public health information accessible via computer and automated telephone systems and on electronic media (diskette and CD-ROM). We review mechanisms for: (1) finding and retrieving CDC reports, (2) querying CDC's numeric data files, (3) transmitting surveillance and other data files to CDC, (4) exchanging electronic mail with CDC staff, and (5) disseminating state and local public health information and data using CDC tools. Each resource is followed with a section on how to obtain access to these resources.