An intelligent computer-assisted instruction system designed for rural health workers in developing countries.

This paper describes an intelligent computer-assisted instruction system that was designed for rural health workers in developing countries. This system, called Consult-EAO, includes an expert module and a coaching module. The expert module, which is derived from the knowledge-based decision support system Tropicaid, covers most of medical practice in developing countries. It allows for the creation of outpatient simulations without the help of a teacher. The student may practice his knowledge by solving problems with these simulations. The system gives some initial facts and controls the simulation during the session by guiding the student toward the most efficient decisions. All student answers are analyzed and, if necessary, criticized. The messages are adapted to the situation due to the pedagogical rules of the coaching module. This system runs on PC-compatible computer.

A hand-held decision-aid system designed for rural health workers.

A great part of the world's population is cared for by rural health workers who are also collecting data for epidemiological studies. These workers have a low level of medical training and are working in a poor technical environment. At the request of an international humanitarian and medical organization (Médecins Sans Frontières), we have developed an integrated (hardware and software) system, TROPICAID, based on a hand-held computer and designed to increase rural health workers' efficiency. The software is easy to use and enables users to get information from an internal data base on 60 drugs. The decision-making module analyzes the patient's parameters (460 different symptoms are recognized) and indicates possible diagnoses (the system knows 210) and relevant treatments. In addition, the system facilitates the collection of medical data for elementary statistical analysis. The computer, which is lightweight (1.5 kg) and compact, runs on battery power for up to a week in normal use. The program which is written in Pascal and data are stored in high-capacity EPROMs. An early trial in Chad with Médecins sans Frontières has shown the value of such a project as well as a few weaknesses to be overcome.