WO2006007735A1

WO2006007735A1 - Quality control system and method

Info

Publication number: WO2006007735A1
Application number: PCT/CH2004/000459
Authority: WO
Inventors: Robert Theiler
Original assignee: Medcap Medical Electronic Data Capturing Gmbh
Priority date: 2004-07-21
Filing date: 2004-07-21
Publication date: 2006-01-26

Abstract

An interactive voice response system (3) is used for automatically interviewing test persons after receiving a medical treatment or service. The interactive voice response system (3) queries the test persons and stores the obtained answers, which are forwarded to a quality control database (2). The test persons may obtain an electronic message providing feedback for the interview. The system is able to obtain quality control feedback from a large number of test persons efficiently, reliably and objectively. It can be applied in health care but also in a large number of other fields.

Description

Quality control system and method

Technical Field

The invention relates to a system and a method for quality control, in particular for obtaining quality control feedback for a medical service or a medi¬ cal treatment.

Background Art

Quality control is of major importance in any fields where the quality of products, services or the like must be monitored. A particularly high level of quality control is required in health care technology. For example, when a new drug, a new treatment or a new medical device or implant are introduced or under clini¬ cal trial, the performance, safety, toxicity, adverse events, stability and effects of the same must be moni- tored rigorously, sometimes over months or years. This requires repeated contacts with the test persons or pa¬ tients (in the following called "test persons") , which is expensive and time consuming.

Disclosure of the Invention

Hence, it is a general object of the inven¬ tion to provide a method and feedback system for quality assurance that allows to obtain quality control feedback from test persons in a simple and inexpensive manner.

This and further objects are achieved by the method and system of the independent claims.

According to the invention, a computer system is used, which is designed for autonomously querying the test persons over a public phone network. Advantageously, the computer system is an interactive voice response sys- tern. In the context of this text and the claims, the term "interactive voice response", "interactive voice response system" or "IVR" designates a technology and a system im¬ plemented by suited hard- and software that is able to communicate with test persons by phone by using artifi¬ cial or pre-recorded voice messages for guiding and que¬ rying the test person and accepts touch tone (DTMF) key input or voice input as a response. Such systems are e.g. presently used in automatic call distribution systems. Using a computer system, and in particular an

IVR, for autonomously interviewing the test persons has the advantage that it is possible to reach a large number of persons without much effort and to query them objec¬ tively. At the same time, such a system is able to obtain the results of the query automatically for further proc¬ essing or for storing in a suited database.

The present system is especially suited for obtaining quality control feedback for a medical service or a medical treatment because it allows to retrieve a large amount of feedback inexpensively, reliably and ac¬ curately. It can, for example, be used to obtain feedback after treatment with a specific drug, a therapeutic or surgical method, or when the user has received an implant or a medical device. It may, however, also be used for quality control in other fields, such as tourism, educa¬ tion and administration.

Brief Description of the Drawings ^{■ ■}

The invention will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become ap¬ parent when consideration is given to the following de¬ tailed description thereof. Such description makes refer- ence to the annexed drawings, wherein:

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the quality control system, Fig. 2 is an example of a record in the first database, and

Fig. 3 is a simplified flow chart of the questioning of a test person.

Modes for Carrying Out the Invention

Fig. 1 shows a system or apparatus for ob- taining quality control feedback from a plurality of test persons 1. The system comprises a first database 2, which holds a record for each participating test person.

An example extract from a corresponding rec¬ ord in first database 2 is shown in Fig. 2. The record contains e.g. the name of the test person, his phone num¬ ber and his e-mail (or a phone number for receiving SMS or MMS messages) . In addition to this, it indicates the quality control (QC) program(s) the test person is par¬ ticipating in. It also stores a preferred call time indi- eating at which time and day the user wants to obtain a call from the quality control system. If the quality con¬ trol program requires repetitive interviews for obtaining several sets of feedback data obtained at different times, the record stores e.g. the day of the week or month when the test person is to be called as well as the date of expiry of the participation.

The record also contains further data, as well as the feedback data obtained from previous inter¬ views with the test person. The data in the record is advantageously en¬ crypted and accessible for authorized personal only.

The data shown in Fig. 2 is only an example of how the data could be arranged. The data could also be arranged in different manner, and/or be stored in several separate linked records, etc.

Turning back to Fig. 1, the system further comprises an interactive voice response (IVR) system 3. IVR system 3 is able to automatically handle phone calls via a public phone network 4 by replaying stored text or voice synthesis and by obtaining answers from test person 1. Typically, test person 1 will be asked to answer by operating a key on his phone, thereby generating a touch tone signal, but IVR system 3 may also be equipped with speech recognition capabilities, e.g. for recognizing a spoken "yes" or "no".

The public phone network 4 may e.g. be a con- ventional public phone network, a TCP/IP based network, such as the Internet, or a combination thereof, as long as it provides access to the test persons' phone 7. IVR system 3 comprises a suitable interface 5 for communicat¬ ing with public phone network 4. IVR system 3 further comprises a call initia¬ tor 6 for automatically calling the persons to be que¬ ried. The phone numbers and dialing times attributed to each test person can be retrieved e.g. from the records in first database 2. It must be noted, though, that IVR system 3 will generally, for security reasons, not have full access to second database 2 but will rather merely obtain the information it requires for its operation, namely the phone number, the QC program and the dialing time attributed to the participating test persons . Call initiator 6 comprises a clock for sched¬ uling the outgoing calls in order to call the test per¬ sons at the indicated times.

Fig. 3 shows a typical interview.

In a first step, call initiator 6 initiates a call to a given test person 1. The test person receives the call through its phone 7 connected to public phone network 4. IVR system 3 will first speak a welcome mes¬ sage with instructions for test person 1. For example, if the QC program is designed to obtain quality control data after a treatment with a given drug xxx, such a message may be: "Welcome to our quality control interview. We would like have your feedback for the treatment with drug xxx that you underwent recently. You will be asked ten questions, which takes about five minutes. We are grate- ful for your participation. During the whole interview, you can press the following keys: Key 7 for restarting the questions, key 8 for hearing the current question one more time, key 9 for stopping the interview without get¬ ting a further call, or key 0 if you want to answer the questions at a later time. Please press key 1 to start."

Then IVR system 3 will then start to ask the questions corresponding to the QC program the given test person is subscribed to. In the above example, a typical question may be: "How strongly have the pains affected your home activities within the last week: For 'not at all' press key 1, for 'slightly' press key 2 for 'moderately' press key 3, for 'strongly' press key 4, or for 'ex¬ tremely' press key 5". When test person 1 presses one of the keys on his phone 7, IVR system 3 attributes the corresponding touch tone to an answer and stores the same in a second database 8, which is e.g. a local database for IVR system 3. IVR system 3 then continues with any further questions provided for a given QC program, again storing the re¬ plies in second database 8. Once the interview is com¬ plete, IVR system 3 thanks the test person and discon¬ nects the line to phone 7. The obtained feedback data stored in second database 8 is then forwarded to first database 2, where it is stored in encrypted and secure manner. The feedback data in second database 8 is then deleted automatically to eliminate the risk of abuse. Second database 8 is merely used for temporarily buffer¬ ing the feedback data. The quality control data stored in first da¬ tabase 2 can contain the complete feedback data as re¬ ceived from second database 8 and/or it may contain other data derived from the feedback data. The quality control data stored in first database 2 can be stored in anony- mized manner for protecting the identity of the test per¬ sons. When first database 2 receives feedback data, it may send test person 1 a message by means of a message server 10. The message is advantageously sent electroni¬ cally. It can e.g. thank the test person for his partici¬ pation and, in addition, it may contain some data derived from or indicative of the received feedback results. For example, it can contain a summary of the answers and/or a progress report obtained from a comparison with earlier interviews .

Advantageously, the message is sent as e-mail to an e-mail account 12 identified by the e-mail entry in the record in database 2. It may e.g. also be sent as an SMS (Short Message Service) to a phone number given by the test person. The message can also be sent to the treating physician or other involved parties as approved by the test person.

As mentioned above, IVR system 3 can initiate the calls to the test persons automatically. Alterna¬ tively or in addition to this, it may also be set up to receive incoming calls from test persons who want to par- ticipate in a feedback interview. In health care applica¬ tions, setting up IVR system 3 to initiate the calls automatically is often advantageous because this in¬ creases the chances to obtain regular feedback data.

If IVR system 3 tries to call a test person but the call is not answered, or if a test person inter¬ rupts an interview, IVR system 3 can be programmed to call again at a later time, e.g. after one hour or one day.

Instead of using a normal phone 7, the test persons may also be equipped with specialized phones, which e.g. comprise a display showing the questions and a selection of answers in text or pictorial representation. For example, a phone with very large buttons can be pro¬ vided for the elderly or disabled persons. If all users are provided with devices equipped to display text or pictorial messages, it may not be necessary to use an in- teractive voice response system. Any computer system be¬ ing able to communicate with the devices over a public phone network, to display a message on the test persons' devices and to autonomously retrieve the answer can be used instead. However, the use of interactive voice re- sponse systems for at least some of the test persons is advantageous because it makes it unnecessary for the test persons to have special hardware.

While there are shown and described presently preferred embodiments of the invention, it is to be dis- tinctly understood that the invention is not limited thereto but may be otherwise variously embodied and prac¬ ticed within the scope of the following claims.

Claims

1. A quality control system for obtaining quality control feedback from a plurality of test persons comprising a computer system (3) designed for autono¬ mously interviewing the test persons through a public phone network (4) and obtaining feedback data from the test persons, a first database (2) storing quality control data derived from the feedback data.

2. The quality control system of claim 1 wherein said computer system (3) is an automatic interac¬ tive voice response system.

3. The quality control system of any of the claims 1 or 2 wherein said computer system (3) comprises a call initiator (6) for automatically calling the test persons .

4. The quality control system of claim 3 wherein said call initiator (6) is adapted to call the test persons repetitively for obtaining several sets of the feedback data at different times.

5. The quality control system of any of the claims 3 or 4, wherein said call initiator (6) is adapted to call a given test person at a predefined time or times associated with said test person.

6. The quality control system of any of the preceding claims further comprising a second database (8) connected to the computer system (3) for temporarily storing obtained feedback data and later forwarding it to the first database (2) .

7. The quality control system of claim 6 wherein said second database (8) is adapted to automati¬ cally erase the stored feedback data after forwarding the feedback data to the first database (2) .

8. The quality control system of any of the preceding claims further comprising a message server (10) for sending an electronic message to a given test person or a third party after obtaining the feedback data from the test person, said message containing data derived from or indicative of said feedback data.

9. The quality control system of any of the preceding claims further comprising a plurality of de¬ vices, each device to be attributed to a test person, connected to said computer system (3) via the public phone network, each device comprising a display for dis- playing queries to the test persons, wherein said com¬ puter system (3) is designed for displaying messages on said displays for interviewing said test persons.

10. A method for obtaining quality control feedback from a plurality of test persons, said method comprising the steps of interviewing the test persons through a pub¬ lic phone network by means of a computer system autono¬ mously querying the test persons and obtaining feedback data from the test persons and storing quality control data derived from the feedback data in a first database.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein said com¬ puter system is an automatic interactive voice response system.

12. The method of any of the claims 10 or 11 further comprising the step of automatically initiating a call to a given test person for interviewing the test person.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein a given test person is called automatically and repetitively at several times for obtaining several sets of the feedback data at different times.

14. The method of any of the claims 12 or 13 further comprising the step of recording a preferred call time for calling a given test person.

15. The method of any of the claims 11 to 14 further comprising the step of sending an electronic mes- sage to a given test person or a third party after ob¬ taining the feedback data from the test person, said mes¬ sage containing data derived from or indicative of said feedback data.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein said mes¬ sage is an e-mail or an SMS.

17. The method of any of the claims 12 to 16 comprising the step of encrypting the quality control data in said first database.

18. A method for obtaining quality control feedback for a medical service or treatment comprising the steps of the method of any of the claims 11 to 17.

19. A method for obtaining quality control feedback for a medical service or a medical treatment, said method comprising the steps of providing said service or treatment to a test person, interviewing the test person through a public phone network by means of an automatic interactive voice response system and obtaining feedback data from the test person and storing quality control data derived from the feedback data in a first database.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising the steps of recording a preferred call time for said test person and automatically calling said test person by means of the automatic interactive voice response system at the preferred call time.