ReadMI - A Mobile-Cloud Computing based Assessment Tool to Scale Up Motivational Interviewing Training

Abstract

Existing slow and labor-intensive processes to assess and disseminate performance-feedback in training health pro-fessionals in counseling techniques like Motivational Interviewing(MI) does not scale to meet the demands of mental health workforce. To automate this process we present ReadMI, a fully functional mobile-cloud computing based dialogue-assessment tool that harnesses latest advancements in automatic speech recognition and natural language processing to analyze MI trainee utterances in real-time and generate instantaneous feed-back. In this paper we present the design and development details of ReadMI prototype. We also present the validation results obtained by comparing ReadMI's performance with MI experts. Our results demonstrate that, by automatically generating feed-back and reducing training delay, ReadMI demonstrates strong potential to scale up MI training workflow.