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Hospital patients checking out self-service check ins
The trend toward self-service kiosks in health-care facilities for such uses as patient check-in and wayfinding is on the rise. While health-care organizations value the increased staff efficiency the kiosks deliver, patients can also benefit with added convenience and time savings.
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| Posiflex kiosk with a Phoenix Kiosk enclosure |
Take CTS's Patient Passport Express kiosks. More than 50 leading health-care system providers, hospitals, and clinics around the U.S. have installed them to allow patients to quickly check-in, make future appointments, update personal medical histories and even provide maps of the facilities to help patients and visitors find their way.
California-based Posiflex Business Machines, a provider of technology for the health-care industry and an exhibitor at this week's Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society in Orlando, Fla., has also seen a demand for more of its systems.
According to Posiflex vice president Doyle Ledford, "The benefit to hospitals comes down to better reallocation of labor and better information management. Hospitals and care facilities can provide patients with easy-to-use terminals that not only walk them through the check-in process but can also allow specific caregiver instruction to be delivered real time. Other functionality, such as payment processing and health-education information gives hospitals the ability to reallocate their staff to more patient-critical activities."
Other uses for kiosks in the health-care field include staff training, as well as touch-screen directories and way-finding systems. The Changi General Hospital in Singapore, for instance, has recently deployed a touch-screen Kiosk solution that displays 3-D pathways to give visitors an easy way to navigate the large facility.
A broader benefit can be seen in digitizing of patient records. Summit Research Associates released an 800-page report on leading trends in kiosks and interactive technology this past fall. Quoted in a KioskMarketplace.com article, Summit's president pointed to the efficiency and accuracy of kiosk check-in systems: "Shifting to the electronic storing of patient information would reduce paperwork and eliminate many human input errors."
The adoption success can be largely attributed to the fact that patient check-in kiosks have the same dual benefits of their consumer kiosk cousins. Kiosk use falters when users do not see the value of conducting a transaction through self service versus a live person. With broad benefits to both health-care facilities as well as patients, hospital check-in kiosks should continue to grow in both popularity and functionality.
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