GENERATING PATIENT-SPECIFIC INTERACTIVE NATURAL-LANGUAGE EXPLANATIONS

Patient compliance is a significant problem and is strongly correlated with the patients' understanding of their condition and prescribed tr eatment. Since doctors typically do not have large amounts of time to educate patients, and impersonal, voluminous patient handouts are larg ely ineffective, we propose the use of a sophisticated computer-based information system to generate tailored, interactive handouts to commu nicate with patients. Our system uses text planning and user modeling techniques to generate natural language descriptions of migraine, its symptoms, triggering factors and prescriptions. The system is capable of handling follow-up questions requesting further information, and ge nerating responses in the context of previously supplied information - a capability unavailable in previous patient information systems. The system tailors its interaction to: (i) the class of migraine patients , (ii) the individual patient, and (iii) the previous dialogue. Prelim inary evaluation of the system indicates that patients find it useful and informative. More extensive evaluation is in progress.