The interviewing computer: A technology for gathering comprehensive treatment information

The interviewing computer is a practical device for gathering comprehensive information on mental health patients. The complex decisions of a treatment science will require a large body of patient facts and an automated interviewing system to elicit such facts, covering the patient’s intake assessment, therapeutic progress, and follow-up stages of treatment. Evidence suggests that the computer interview may equal or excel the interview accomplishments of some clinicians who are unknowledgeable about asking certain clinical questions, forget to ask these questions, or fail to record crucial patient facts. The documentation of each patient’s treatment episode is essential for a treatment science, and the computer interview may represent a technology for achieving this information goal.