Are Patients Ready for Kiosks?

Everyone is moving to self-service. Quicker. Cheaper. Privacy. Automated. Etc.

There are lots of benefits. Think about all the information which is needed in healthcare along with all the linked processes. If this can be simplified and some of the burden pushed to patients that is great.

Now, this will vary by age and demographic. Typically older people will be more hesitant to use automated technology. Just look at your self-service grocery lines. Additionally, you have to watch interpretation of questions. I will never forget the doctor asking my grandfather if he smoked and him saying yes. I asked for a point of clarification and found out he had smoked 35 years ago.

I couldn’t find all the examples, but I have talked with vendors using kiosks for checking in to an office or hospital, providing translation services, helping match basic needs with over-the-counter medications, simplifying basic services (e.g., picking up a refill prescription), or for pushing information to the patient.

Kiosks blend challenges with physical design (height, location, screen size) with application challenges (number of screens, simplicity, data entry) with business model challenges (costs, advertising (Y/N), patient utilization). But, done right, I clearly see this as key to the future of healthcare. It will help address staffing shortages, address data quality, and help patients take on more responsibility.

Imagine walking up to a kiosk and using biometrics (i.e., retinal scanner, fingerprints) to log-in. Once you log-in, your history (Rx, lab, medical) is all available via your personal health record. You register for your appointment and get pushed health and wellness information that you can print real-time. You can then chose to print information for discussion with your physician based on monitoring of your cholesterol, weight, and blood pressure for your home system. Finally, because you log-in, the system automatically queues up other events for the staff to initiate pending your visit with the doctor.

Here are a few examples of kiosks in healthcare:

• ER check-in kiosk (article)
• Pharmacy kiosk (walk-through screens)
• Duane Reade Kiosk (which I was going to leverage in my startup – Centralscript)
• Fitness Kiosk (not sure if real or vision)
• Asteres
• Galvanon (hospital kiosks)
• McKesson kiosks

And, if you’re really interested in kiosks, you could read Bill Gerba’s blog on kiosks.