Article

Health assessment kiosks could be health care's missing link

A growing fleet of health care kiosks is gearing up to reach the underserved.

August 7, 2013 by Natalie Gagliordi — Editor of KioskMarketplace.com, Networld Media Group

During a recent virtual roundtable discussion produced by the Digital Screenmedia Association, SoloHealth Founder and CEO Bart Foster explained how health assessment kiosks have become "the front porch of health care," serving as an entry point for individuals seeking a connection to health services.

The analogy is particularly apt as the Affordable Care Act slowly trickles into the health care system and ancillary options for health services such as the SoloHealth Station have begun to capture the attention of some major health industry players — from pharmaceutical companies to health insurers, and even physicians.

On the health insurance side, Foster said that the recent changes to the country's health care system have disrupted the insurance industry's approach to reaching customers. Until recently, insurers relied on employers, but now they must deal directly with consumers.

"We have a platform that allows them to do that," Foster said, noting SoloHealth's partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia. On Aug. 1, more than 2.4 million BCBSGa members gained the ability to track and trend their health data and merge updated SoloHealth biometric data and HRA results as a means to expand existing BCBSGa care management systems.

"These HIPAA-compliant, bilingual kiosks will provide important health information to users and gives us one more way that we can connect with the consumer," said Morgan Kendrick, president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia, in a June news release regarding the partnership.

The federal government could also leverage the kiosks' user base as a way to actively reach consumers and help promote the health insurance exchanges, Foster said.

But SoloHealth is not a solo act in the health kiosk landscape. The Ohio-basedHealthSpot kiosks are in pilot tests as the company attempts to perfect its approach to telehealth. The more recently released higi Station, the brainchild of dotcom entrepreneur and Chicago Sun-Times owner Michael Ferro and hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco, is nipping at the heels of SoloHealth with its similar concept and deployments in retail pharmacy locations.

At this point, the higi Station does not sell advertising or offer coupons — revenue streams that make up the bulk of SoloHealth's profit strategy. In an article on healthpopuli.com, Ferro said he hopes that someday SoloHealth could link with higi's platform.

"We want to work with everybody," Ferro said in the article. "We want everybody to use our platform."

Competitors aside, Foster's message during the roundtable was clear: Although the kiosk acts as a gateway and serves a multitude of parties, the core focus remains on the health of its users, predominantly the underserved, and getting them to the right point in the health care system.

"That's where SoloHealth comes in, educating [consumers] on diseases and letting them know where to go to get care in the community," he said. "The way the health care system is set up today there is no way we can add 35 million more Americans into the system without adding more options. We need to give everyone the tools to take care of themselves. What SoloHealth is doing is the just the tip of the iceberg."

Read more about kiosks in health care.

Cover photo by wiremoons.