News

Boston doc creates kiosk for health screenings

February 5, 2009

Mass. High Tech: A Boston physician is developing a tabletop medical kiosk to reduce the time and cost of health screenings and routine doctor visits, especially for patients with chronic health conditions. Ronald Dixon, director of the Virtual Practice Project at the Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital's department of medicine, is working with five software and hardware experts to develop the Health Care 360, and is the leader of the six-person kiosk project. The medical kiosk, dubbed the Health Care 360, is a 2-foot-by-4-foot Windows-based touchscreen machine that poses questions to patients about their dietary and exercise habits, and patients can input vital signs and data such as weight. The kiosk has an attached cuff that can be used for blood pressure testing. It can also be used in blood testing, but the current protoype would require someone to place a blood sample in the device. Information is sent to a central computer via a network link.

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