INTERVIEW
The Inciters Group in a brief interview with Mr. A. Azeta on the research study titled: A Voice- based Mobile Prescription Application for Healthcare Services.
Interview performed by Abah Ajuma and Amoka Eunice on November 29, 2010
Questions concerning the issue of using voice messages like those used by mobile phone companies in the operation of their customer care services to prescribe and remind patients of their drugs were raised and answers were provided on what this research study is all about and how it can be of benefit to the average Nigerian person and especially those that dwell in the rural areas in Nigeria.
It was a very interesting and impactful interview
Ajuma: sir, what is the rationale behind using voice messages for reminding patients to take their drugs?
Mr. Azeta: Adverse drug effects are a major cause of death in the world with tens of thousand deaths occurring across the world each year because of medication or prescription errors. Many of such errors involve the administration of the wrong drug or dosage by healthcare givers to patients due to bad handwritings, drug interactions, confusing drug names etc.
We provided voice-based mobile prescription application through our publication/paper to avoid the unclear handwriting problem common to most medical doctors. It is easier for a doctor to see and understand the handwriting of another doctor, but more difficult for the patient and pharmacist to see and understand the handwriting of some doctors. There are situations whereby some patients have been sent back by pharmacist/pharmaceutical stores for illegible handwriting of prescription made by doctors. More so, it is easier for persons that are not visually impaired to see and understand prescription/handwriting writing by a doctor, but for patients that are visually impaired (i.e. blind), voice messages from the mobile phone will be very suitable to enable them listen and hear prescription information from telephones/mobile phones.
Eunice: Is/are there any other medium/media through which this information has been disseminated to the layman? That is, any other medium/media other than academic papers?
Mr. Azeta: This information has not been disseminated to the layman through any other medium However, when we are ready to fully use/deploy the system, we will contact the hospitals and patients that may be interested in the system, discuss the system/application with them, carry out a demonstration of the system in their hospital and train them on how to use the application. If several hospitals fully accept the application, there may be need for us to use fliers/pamphlet and with more fund use newspaper advertisement to disseminate the new technology to the layman and other e-health stakeholders.
Eunice: sir, how can this technology improve life at the grassroot level? How will they get access to this?
Mr. Azeta: The grass root and rural persons already have mobile phones for making calls. Once the application is deployed, all we need is to train the grass root persons on how to dial a particular phone number to connect and use the application.
Life will be easier for rural dwellers if they don’t have to walk or travel long distances to see a doctor. With our system, they don’t have to spend too much money and time to visit physician/doctors/hospital. They are not buying any additional machine or computer or equipment. All they need to do is to use their mobile phones and dial a telephone number e.g. 0902786900 to connect to the e-health application, and they follow the instruction by responding to voice prompt. It works like an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system that says something like in the case of banking:
Press 1 to check your balance
Press 2 to request for cheque book
Etc.
In the case of e-Health care system as in this publication, something like the following will serve as example:
When you connect it will say:
Welcome to Voice-based Mobile Prescription Application (vbmopa).
To login into the system, you must be one of the following users: patient, lab attendant or pharmacist.
Say "drug prescription" For drug prescription.
IVR: Say "drug dosage" For drug dosage.
IVR: Say “drug administration” For drug administration
IVR: Say “exit” to exit the system
Ajuma: thank you very much. Finally sir, there are other (even more) pressing problems in Nigeria such as unemployment. Why did you choose to work on this particular problem?
Mr. Azeta: It is true there are several other pressing problems in Nigeria such as unemployment, poverty, corruption, illiteracy, etc. We chose to work on Healthcare system using voice because (1) Health is wealth, and healthy people make up healthy country. More so good healthcare is one of the key agenda of any government as contained in vision 20-2020 for Nigeria. (2) We want to provide a solution that will solve the problem of accessibility of healthcare services. The grass root and rural persons cannot afford the high cost of treatment in the urban areas that require them to be physically present in the hospital premises. With our system, the patient does not need to travel long distances to consult a doctor, all you need is to dial a telephone number as long as there is GSM network and you will be linked to the application that will answer any question about diagnosis, treatment and the drugs using voice response. All the questions, answer and information are provided through IVR.
(3) You need good health to be able to seek for employment. To get good health care services, good hospitals and doctors must be accessed by everyone including those in the grass root. And to increase the number of persons accessing the good hospitals/doctors, we have proposed through our publication/paper a voice-based e-health system. The cost of calling the application is minimal and can be afforded by the patient. When the application is fully deployed and functional, an arrangement may also be worked out with the GSM network companies to reduce tariff or even make it free to enable patients call and access the voice-based e-health application without undergoing financial stress.
Ajuma and Eunice: Thank you very much for your time sir and God bless.
