Conversational ontology operator: patient-centric vaccine dialogue management engine for spoken conversational agents

摘要

In normal human interaction, speech is a natural modality for us to communicate to each other. According to research, more information can be communicated in less time than printed material [1–3]. Face-to-face communication between a health providers and patients is an important factor in improving health outcomes. This type of communication is helpful in personal interaction between the patient and provider when discussing the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine which mitigates cancers caused by the HPV virus in adulthood, and it has been reported to encourage vaccine uptake [4]. Also, provider communication is recommended by the President’s Cancer Council to increase vaccination uptake [5]. Despite the recommendations and benefits of the HPV vaccine, the vaccination rates are below the 80% coverage rate promoted by the Healthy People 2020 report [6]. This is complicated with the limited time that health care providers have to discuss the HPV vaccine with health consumers, with just a third of the patients receiving a discussion about the HPV vaccine during their visit [4]. One experimental solution is our proposition for a speech-enabled dialogue system embodied in a software agent that could facilitate the communication task of counseling on the HPV vaccine during the patients’ clinical visit.