SUPPORTING RURAL OUTPATIENTS THROUGH A WEB-BASED CONVERSATIONAL USER INTERFACE

ABSTRACT

Even before the current (2020/2021) pandemic began, Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) had been seen as a valuable way to ease the burden on medical staff in many countries. In times of restricted direct contact with people, the need for online or virtual tools to connect patients with physicians has become even more visible. In addi-tion, these restrictions hamper the training conditions for prospective doctors. This paper describes the design and implementation of a CUI covering patients' minor complaints of the Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT), which can be correlated with infection by COVID-19. The purpose of this study is to provide pilot test results for an online anamnesis and diagnosis tool supporting the cooperative work of specialists and non-specialists at their workplaces. We have designed and created the cooperative online anamnesis and diagnosis system (COLDS) using 1) a knowledge-based system for the anamnesis mainly of complaints related to ENT including the eyes, 2) a knowledge base of disorders regard-ing ENT and eyes, and 3) a user interface that assists patients as well as cooperative processes involving non-specialists and specialists. COLDS is part of a clinical decision support system. The system has been evaluated in a two-tier pilot test process set in a real-life environment Tier 1 was concerned with the usability of the system;whereas Tier 2 involved medical specialists to evaluate the outcome and recommendations created by the system based on an adapted Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) framework. Medical interns and doctors evaluated the system with a five-point Likert scale and the results show that 4.38 for the ease of system and 4.51 for overall satisfac-tion with the system at the confidence interval 95%. © 2023 ICIC International.