Emergency call operators may soon have a faster way to weed out hoax calls, with ground-breaking technology developed by the University of Southern Queensland receiving a $300,000 boost.
Computer scientist Rajib Rana will use the money, granted though the State Government's COVID-19 Industry Research Fellowship, to develop a distress inference system.
The system will use artificial intelligence algorithms to automatically determine distress levels in people's voices and allow call handlers, dispatchers and clinicians to identify hoax calls.
Dr Rana said it would help to stop non-legitimate calls clogging phone lines during time-critical emergencies.
"They take resources away from someone who really needs it and that can cost lives," he said.
He said the technology would monitor physiological cues in callers, such as a high respiratory rate and dry mouth.
"When someone is in real distress there are physiological changes that happen, and that really alters their speech production," Dr Rana said.
"Usually those changes are really hard to imitate.
"So using artificial intelligence techniques we are trying to determine those changes in real time.
"It's not going to replace a human specialist, but ... based on the objective level of distress they can rightly forward them to an expert who can talk through the situation."
Police and Lifeline considering technology
The Metro North Hospital and Health Service will be the first to trial the system, through its 1300MH mental health support call, mid-next year.
Dr Rana said the Queensland Police Service, Lifeline and Cancer Council Queensland had also expressed interest in trialling the system once it was developed.
"There is a lot of interest," he said.
"When we can do the trial and publish the results, I'm really hoping to see interest not only locally but internationally."
He said the technology would be well-suited for use in natural disasters such as bushfires and floods when operators would receive a high volume of calls.
Brisbane's Metro North Hospital and Health Service said it was in the early stages of collecting data from its mental health triage phone service.
It said data from callers in genuine distress would be used to help inform hoax call detection across emergency departments and other call centres.
