From this week on, patients visiting emergency rooms at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) in Montreal, Canada, will have access to a new resource for locating follow-up care and services.
Touchscreen activated kiosks have been installed at the Montreal General and Royal Victoria hospitals to provide information on nearby pharmacies and clinics, as well as contact information, hours of operation and interactive maps with public transport routes. The idea and initiative for this project came from MUHC Nursing Resource Manager Barbara Cooke.
"In the past, patients would frequently ask nurses and admitting staff for information on the nearest pharmacy or the closest clinic to their home for follow-up care," said Cooke in a MUHC press release. "It was impossible for our team to know about every resource in Montreal."
The kiosks provide location information based on users' postal codes.
Cooke submitted her idea for the information kiosks as part of a contest that encourages MUHC staff to submit innovative ideas to improve all aspects of hospital life. Some of the ideas that are submitted receive grants that take them into development. Cooke worked with local firm Integration New Media, Inc. (INM) to develop and deploy the kiosks.
The kiosks are housed in sturdy casings designed to withstand a high volume of users and were developed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week without requiring regular maintenance.
