CIHR Team in Access to Children’s Mental Health Services, the CATHI Pilot Project
The healthcare system, like any other system, is an intricate web of elements that combine together to form many components and processes. Currently Canada is working towards improving their healthcare system to allow for easier communication processes between healthcare professionals within organizations, between organizations, as well as through interactions with patients. Health informatics simply stated is the study of obtaining/retrieving, sharing, storing, and organizing knowledge through the use of information and communication systems to help manage the healthcare system.1 Health Informatics focuses on understanding the basic building blocks of the existing systems and the nature in which they are used, to create and develop new modifications for the systems that are unique and useful and provide positive impact on the healthcare system. Wait times in the Canadian healthcare system are of big debate daily and require a solution if not many solutions to curb the time people wait for certain services. One solution being used at the Centre for Research in Family Health at the IWK Health Centre is found in the Family Help Program. The Family Help Program uses distance treatment by means of telephones to access clients with mild to moderate mental health problems. These clients, in need of services, may be on the wait list to see a specialist or may not be able to access care conveniently in their communities. Telephones are common basic form of technology that allows two-way communication between parties, and technology boosts affiliations with clients. The Centre for Research in Family Health is housing research titled CIHR Team in Access to Children’s Mental Health Services, which focuses on finding new ways, using innovative technology to reduce wait times for children with mental health problems. Computerized telephony is one way to enhance the already proven successful Family Help Program. Computerized telephony enhances the telephone by allowing a computer to call into someone giving a sense of anonymity. The possibility of developing and integrating computerized telephony into the Family Help Program was first evaluated by Dr. Hadi Kharrazi in his 2005 Masters Thesis (approved by Dalhousie University REB; submitted March 2005; defended March 28, 2005). Dr. Kharrazi concluded that integrating an interactive voice response (IVR) system would help reduce delivery costs for the Family Help Program.2 To determine whether an interactive voice response (IVR) system will work for the Family Help Program, a pilot project is being prepared to assess usability and satisfaction of a system called CATHI the ‘Computer Automated Telephone and Help Information’ system. The CATHI system is a tool used to support parents during their treatment (clinical care). In order to enhance the system’s output, results from the recently conducted parental focus groups at McMaster University, in Hamilton Ontario, were reviewed. Parents in the focus groups suggested that if the CATHI system was integrated into the Family Help Program, parents in the treatment program may not be as accepting of CATHI, and parents would much prefer to speak with human.3 Parents in the focus groups, stressed the importance of creating a bond or connection between the people helping them on the other line. To date, the system has been modified from a basic computer voice (text to speech) to a prerecorded voice that sounds pleasant. The researchers hope that the pre-recorded voice will enhance the likelihood that parents will accept the system in the treatment program. Actions have been taken to assess qualities of computer systems that people have preferred in the past such as: complimentary.