Functional. Private. Efficient. These are the major benefits of an emerging trend in the Twin Cities Healthcare Industry. Like it or not, self check-in is becoming a major trend in the healthcare market.
As designers of health-related environments, we first began seeing this concept in the dental field, specifically used more frequently by orthodontic clinics. The reason being that the orthodontic patient makes frequent visits to the clinic for the maintenance of braces. In this regard, self check-in is an extremely efficient process geared toward getting the patient in and out of the office quickly and efficiently with the management of their healthcare plan.
Today, we see self check-in making its way into the healthcare environment for a similar, but expanded set of reasons. Self check-in puts the patient in control of their medical visit. It provides a level of privacy that is extremely important to some people. It allows patients to input the reason for their visit, and share symptoms and concerns in a confidential manner. Many kiosks on the market today can go so far as to assign the patient checking in with a number that is then called when the staff is ready to bring the patient back. This preserves patient identity and improves staff efficiency within the clinic environment.
Check-in kiosks can also assist with the management of reception staff. Having the kiosk available will free up reception staff allowing them to devote more personal time to the patients that require extra assistance, such as the new patient requiring the completion of paperwork, or the patient with new insurance coverage. The average time patients spend waiting to see a health-care provider is 22 minutes, and some exam procedures stretch for hours, according to a 2009 report by Press Ganey Associates, a health-care consulting firm, which surveyed 2.4 million patients at more than 10,000 locations. Orthopedists have the longest waits, at approximately
29 minutes; dermatologists the shortest, at 20. The report also noted that patient satisfaction dropped significantly with each five minute interval of waiting time.
Below are Some Examples of Check-In Kiosks which we have integrated into some recent projects. Feel free to contact us if you are interested in more information.
