News

Kiosk keeps mall walkers up to date on local hospital

October 26, 2003

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- A new, interactive display by Covenant Health at West Town Mall reaches out to users with multiple means of communication, from the plain old telephone to streaming video.

According to a story in KnoxNews,the new kiosk "offers the consumer a variety of high-tech ways to find out about their health," said Gary Young, director of Covenant's Center for Community Health.

Covenant owns and operates five East Tennessee hospitals along with other health-service centers and insurance provider Cariten.

The kiosk, located inside the mall, provides information about health, job opportunities at Covenant and the company's hospitals and services.

Plasma-screen TVs anchor the arching display and feature special dome-shaped speakers that allow visitors to hear audio only when standing directly under them, the article said.

Covenant contracted with Knoxville-based EonStreams to provide online video-streaming services to the kiosk, and the content can be updated by Covenant online.

The kiosk also contains phone stations for health-related questions, computers featuring Covenant's Web site and two blood pressure machines.

Young said Covenant selected the mall for its first kiosk location because of the thousands of shoppers and walkers that pass through the shopping center. The kiosk cost $35,000.

The site also worked because it had been used previously by Comcast Cable and already had Internet access, he said.

Young said this is Covenant's first attempt at a public kiosk because, in the past, consumers have been fearful of computers.

With teenagers to octogenarians using the Internet these days, he said, "The computer access to people is just as comfortable as the blood pressure access."

Mall walkers in particular use the kiosk, Young said.

Young said Covenant can monitor the kiosk's usage by tracking the number of Web site visits and calls from the kiosk to the call center. The company will evaluate the success of its West Town Mall site to decide whether to set up another kiosk in the future, likely at one of its medical centers.

"We'll test this and see what works," he said. "We're going to learn from this and if we do another one it'll be bigger and better."