1. Call Center Solution for Health Care (HC)
in Bangladesh Md.Akramul Huq Chowdhury
ID: 061779056, ETE-605
E-mail:akramulhuq@gmail.com
North South University, Dhaka
Date: April 14, 2008
Submitted to: Dr. Mashiur Rahman
Introduction:
Bangladesh is a small country but its have the large number of population. The
large number people need health facility but in our country, the number of
doctors is insufficient. So in my proposal, I emphasis on accurate health care
consultancy in Bangladesh through mobile operator over call center. Doctor to
population ratio – 1:4719.Nurse to population ratio – 1:8226.Total hospital beds-
40,773(over 29000in GOB)
History and Govt. Policy:
Since independence more than 30 years ago, the Government of Bangladesh has
invested substantially in the institutionalization and strengthening of health with
special attention to rural areas, and the government is committed to HFA with
PHC as the key approach. For the last 30 years, there has been a substantial
improvement in the health status of the people. Life expectancy at birth has
increased to 64.9 (2002), CDR has declined to 5.9 (2003), and TFR reduced from
6.34 (1975) to 3.0 (2004) (Sample and Vital Registration System, and
Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2004). The quality of life of the
general population is still very low. The government is aware of this situation and
the major shortcomings that need to be addressed, i.e., the development of an
efficient project management mechanism across the health system.
Improvement in the logistics of drug supplies and equipment to health facilities
at district and lower levels; improvement in the production and quality of human
resources for health.
Govt. Futures Vision:
The government has formulated a perspective plan keeping in view the needs of
the health sector for the future. The formulation of a national health policy would
provide strategy directives on major health issues. The future vision for the
health sector would include universal access to basic healthcare and services of
acceptable quality
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2. Govt. Proposed Strategies:
The Health and Population Sector Strategy (HPSS) introduced in 1998, which
forms the basis for the future national health policy, is based on several key
principles: greater orientation to client needs, especially those of women,
improved quality, efficiency and equity of government health services.
Objectives:
• Enable the medical experts to take control of a remote medical emergency
when required.
• The remote health care system should be designed for easy portability
• The health care solution should be cost effective requiring minimal
training, installation and maintenance
• The health care equipment used should use an optimum bandwidth for
data communication.
Need for Health care:
“Emergency Medical Care is designed to overcome the factors most commonly
implicated in preventable mortality, such as delays in seeking care, access to
health facility and provision of adequate care at the facility.” (WHO (2002) [1]
• Non availability of facilities locally
• Emergency at night
• Non availability of appropriate skills
• Technology locally
• Travel
The places where the medical facilities is not available there health care team
can provide this facility and they can get the advice of one or more skilled
doctors with the help of high technology from these places. Therefore, there is
no need of unnecessary traveling for doctors. [7]
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3. Health care Ensures Delivery of:
• Right medical advice
• At the Right place
• At the Right time
Health care can ensure the better medical advice for the people at right place
and tight time. People can get better treatment from any place and in any time.
Golden Hour:
The people of Bangladesh want these facilities always. Therefore, it is the right
time to provide them health care.
Need for Health care in Bangladesh:
• Huge population (above 140 Million) with inequitable distribution of
resources
• 70% of Bangladesh’s populations live in rural areas whereas 75% of
qualified consultants practice in urban centers
• Vast land area with difficult / inaccessible terrain
• Seasonal isolation of some tracts of land e.g. due to floods, snow, etc
The people of Bangladesh are divided in to two parts, one part is urban people
another is rural people. The urban people are enjoining all the facilities of city life
but the people of remote areas are not getting these facilities. By health care,
they can get the health care facilities as better as cities people can.
The health sector of this country will more strong. In addition, it can help to
make a develop nation. Most of the people of this counter live in rural area but
the maximum number of specialist doctor is living in urban. There are some
areas where people can’t go easily and can’t go in other part of the country
easily also.
Health care can help those people who can travel. It can be use in flood when
the people became stiff and can’t find any doctor to help them immediately.
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4. Advantages of HC:
• Makes expertise available - anywhere
• Early institution of appropriate treatment
• Decrease need for transfers
• Effective utilization of transports
• Saves costs to patient, provider, system
• Post Treatment follows up
Proposed Call Center Solution for health care in Bangladesh:
What is Call Center?
Call Center means at that premises the agent received the call from client and
help, advice to the caller their appropriate problem.
Figure: 1 Call center solution technical diagram
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5. Technical Aspect of Proposed Health Care Call Center:
My designed proposal performs entered in the mobile phone operator premises.
First, we have to configure a short code in the MSC. In call center suite, we have
an IVR (interactive voice response). In IVR, we stored 50 common diseases
advice if any one call to our call center then he or she can listen those audio.
Figure: 2 proposed call center diagram
Here we configure a short core in MSC. When a user calls 25726(AKRAM) that
time the call hit the BTS and caller received a channel to establish a call. After
that, the call routed to MSC through BSC. In MSC, we have already created some
groups for call center then MSC route the call to the call center suite. After
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6. received the call, the caller listen to the IVR pre defined audio. If the IVR cannot
satisfied the patient then the call routed to the call center doctor. Call center
doctor using local LAN and CTI (computer telephony integration). In my
proposed call center, we have used patient management software, which makes
the data of patient. The mobile number is the unique identity for every patient. If
any patient wants to take his follow up treatment, he or she can listen to his
prescription easily.
Figure: 3 All call center doctors are busy
When a patient call 25726 then the call received by the IVR and it will routed to
the call center doctor, if the call center doctors are busy that time the call will be
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7. routed through the FXO gateway to mobile doctor. In my proposed system,
mobile call center doctors are allow to receive the call. The mobile doctors are
always predefined login to the call center.
Figure: 4 Mobile doctors received the call
Another important consideration is, the mobile doctor received the call when he
or she stays in a silence place other wise not. In my proposed call center, the
mobile doctors have some authentication to receive the call and he or she will be
liable for the consultancy.
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8. Conclusion:
The proposed call center solution for health care is very much needed in
Bangladesh. It is easy to implement in our country. If we have established the
health care call center, everyone will be benefited. Not only call center owner but
also the poor people in Bangladesh. I am very much optimistic that we will have
implemented it in the near future.
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9. References
[1] http://www.whoban.org/health_system_bangladesh.html
[2] http://www.maaws.org/main/index.php
[3] http://www.bangladeshgateway.org/healthcarecenter.php
[4] http://www.decisionevent.com/html/bangladesh_healthcare.html
[5] http://www.internationalbusinessstrategies.com
[6] http://ukhealthcare.uky.edu/UKMDs/callcenter.asp
[7] http://www.talk2rep.com/healthcare-call-centers.htm
[8] http://callcenterz.info/
[9] http://www.intellicare.com/
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