Health Communication Technology Group 

Medical Director:   Blake Cady MD
Scientific Director:  James Michaelson PhD

A major crisis in medicine can be found in the mundane occurrence of forgotten appointments, commonplace delays in the delivery of medical treatment, and in the widespread failure to deliver ordinary preventative medicine:

• Our own research has shown that 1-in-4 women come in for their first mammogram and never return again, while 1-in-4 of the women who make the appointments forget to show up; these failures probably double the breast carcinoma death rate. 
• 40% of patients who make appointments for colon cancer screening fail to show up. 
• 36,000 Americans die of influenza, deaths that are almost completely preventable by a vaccine that costs less than $25.

Fortunately, there is a simple, inexpensive, and effective solution to these problems: modern computer speech and telephony. For pennies per call, computers can make highly interactive and appealing telephone calls, which can remind patients to attend appointments for preventative services. The application of this technology to preventive medicine is the work of our group.

Ongoing projects concern:

1. The implementation and testing (in all of Massachusetts) of our system, which can provide computer generated telephone reminder messages to help women remember to make, and then attend, appointments for mammography screening.
2. The implementation and testing of a system that will provide computer generated telephone reminder messages to help the patients at a clinic serving poor patients to make, and then attend, appointments for cancer screening (mammograms, pap tests, colonoscopies).

Planned projects will concern:

1. The creation and testing of a system that will provide computer generated telephone reminder messages to help the patients remember to make, and then attend, appointments for colon cancer screening.
2. The creation and testing of a system that will launch computer generated messages to inform patients of when and where influenza immunizations are available.
3. The creation and testing of a system for tracking patients with signs suggestive of breast cancer, whose goal will be reducing the time from cancer detection until treatment.