1. A monitoring system for communicating with at least one individual, the monitoring system comprising: a computer configured to communicate with at least one remotely situated apparatus; a user interface in communication with the computer for entering, authoring, selecting, or any combination thereof, at least one of (i) one or more messages to be presented to the individual, (ii) one or more queries to be answered by the individual, (iii) one or more response choices corresponding to the one or more queries or (iv) any combination thereof; a data merge program configured to generate a customized script program by customizing a generic script program, wherein the customized script program is to be executed by the remotely situated apparatus and includes (i) a display command to present to the individual at least one of the one or more messages, the one or more queries, the one or more response choices corresponding to the one or more queries or any combination thereof and (ii) an input command to receive responses when the script program includes one or more queries to be presented; and one or more databases accessible by the data merge program for storing the generic script program and any responses received from the remotely situated apparatus.