ABSTRACT
Nursing is an important aspect of healthcare services and improvement of the efficiency of healthcare processes is an important issue. Since nursing involves both physical action and information processing, it could be described as “actionoriented intellectual services.” There is a striking mismatch between “actionoriented intellectual services” and current information systems, including traditional IT and paper, which are generally developed as tools for deskwork. This mismatch causes inefficiency in healthcare processes and gives nurses a lot of stress. To address this problem, we focus on voice. The voice interface enables hands-free or semi-hands-free message composition. Several voice interfaces, such as telephone, mobile phone (PHS), intercom and voice-mail have been already used for information processing in nursing. But voices are mere audio signals in these systems. Therefore, it is difficult for these systems to handle in smart ways and appropriately deliver them. Smarter voice information processing systems are required in “action-oriented intellectual services.” We have been developing a smart voice tweet system for nursing that makes it possible for nurses to input care records, make memos for themselves, and compose voice messages for other staff in a unified way. The system automatically adds to each voice several types of information tags associated with the state at the moment the voice is input. The tags enable automatic delivery to adequate destinations without extra instructions or operations by nurses.
