RefAssist: An AI Based Voice Assistant Framework to Notify Hospital Referral for Pregnant Women in Bangladesh

Pregnant women in rural areas of Bangladesh are often referred to various medical centers in the process of their antenatal care (ANC). However, there are cases when they or their family members forget or ignore these referrals. Text message reminders have been used to rectify the issue, but they too often go unnoticed. Voice calls can be suitable for the reminder, but appointing a person to make numerous calls can be tedious in nature for the caller, and the enthusiasm can be reduced after a while. In this paper, we propose an AI-generated voice call framework to address the challenge of reminders in an automated manner, a more effective approach than human-assisted calls, which can become monotonous for the caller, especially when a large number of calls are to be made. This approach ensures that expectant mothers and their families receive timely reminders, improving adherence to ANC referrals while reducing the burden on human assistants.