Healthy phoning: Papua New Guinea's first ever health call centre

Abstract

Objective: The paper reports on the establishment of Papua New Guinea's first ever health call centre.

Method: Details of the phone calls received during the first nine weeks of the call centre's operation are presented.

Results: The data on phone call rates and types indicate a slight increase in utilisation of the service over the initial period. A total of 113 health-related phone calls were received during the first nine weeks of the call centre's operation. Most of these calls were from the public, while a small number were from rural health workers. Prank calls and calls enquiring about the service were also received. During establishment, mental health was not considered and calls that may fall into this category have not been logged separately.

Conclusions: Further analysis would need to be undertaken to determine the effectiveness of the health call centre model in the Papua New Guinea context. Scripts, protocols and analysis regarding mental health may need to be developed.

Keywords: Papua New Guinea; developing country; phone; tele-health; tele-medicine.