Patent ID: 7533171

Claim:
A monitoring system for communicating with at least one individual, the monitoring system comprising: a server configured to broadcast a script program to at least one remotely situated apparatus through at least one communication medium; a user interface configured to communicate with the server and adapted for (i) entering, authoring, selecting, or any combination thereof, a set of queries to be answered by the individual and (ii) entering, authoring, selecting, or any combination thereof, corresponding response choices for each of the queries; a script generator configured to generate the script program to be broadcast to the remotely situated apparatus, wherein the script program represents the queries and the response choices to the individual; and one or more databases accessible by the server for storing the script program and the responses received from the remotely situated apparatus, wherein (i) said monitoring system is further configured to communicate with a plurality of individuals through the at least one communication medium using a corresponding plurality of remotely situated apparatus, (ii) the one or more databases are further configured for storing one or more script programs, (iii) the server further includes a script assignment unit configured to access the one or more databases for assigning to each of the individuals at least one of the script programs, and (iv) the one or more databases are further configured for storing a list of the individuals, and for each of the individuals, a respective pointer to the script program assigned to the individual.