Alemi F.
AHSR FHSR Annu Meet Abstr Book. 1994; 11: 7.
Department of Management, Cleveland State University, OH 44115.
PROBLEM AND OBJECTIVES. One way to reduce follow-up costs is with an automated follow-up system. At Cleveland State University, we have developed a system that initiates telephone calls, locates clients, and then interviews them to obtain their health status. Clients answer questions asked by the computer by pressing keys on their telephone pad. The computer pools the data collected from different patients into one central file that can be analyzed at any time, with no lag for data entry. This paper reports the performance of the system on a patient population that is notorious for being difficult to follow: drug addicts. The proposed automated follow-up system is more cost-effective than the usual approach to follow-up because all of the functions run on a personal computer. Given the cost advantage of the automated outcome monitoring, the real question then becomes issues of effectiveness and reliability. DATA AND METHODS. Forty-two recovering drug users and alcoholics received weekly computerized telephone interviews and periodic written questionnaires over a five month period. The interview included questions on drug use, social life, money, and other predictors of relapse into drug use. Subjects received a $5 gift certificate for completing each computer interview and each written questionnaire. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS. This study shows that monitoring of outcome of treatment for a very hard to reach patient through computerized telephone interviews is not only possible, but more effective than collecting data through surveys. On an average week, participation for the computer interviews exceeded the written questionnaires by 11.9 percent. In addition, the computerized telephone interview yields the same results as the mailed questionnaire. Clients' returned written questionnaires were paired with the computer interviews they completed during the same week. Only 4 of the 25 questionnaires had inter-method correlations (gamma statistic) less than 0.90, suggesting high inter-method reliability. IMPLICATIONS OF AUDIENCE. If the study is generalizable to more compliant populations, it shows how one could inexpensively follow patients in the community to collect information on their health status, social functioning, morbidity, and other self-reported information.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Computers
- Data Collection
- Delivery of Health Care
- Evaluation Studies
- Health Status
- Humans
- Interviews as Topic
- Patient Satisfaction
- Postal Service
- Questionnaires
- Recurrence
- Substance-Related Disorders
- Telemedicine
- Telephone
- Treatment Outcome
- methods
- hsrmtgs
Other ID:
UI: 102211953
From Meeting Abstracts