News

Self-health technology

MediKiosk brings self-service to the healthcare industry.

January 21, 2007

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, Americans made more than 1.1 billion visits to doctors' offices, hospital emergency rooms and outpatient departments in 2004.

While technology has transformed many aspects of the healthcare industry over the last 30 years, the patient registration process has remained largely unchanged. During each visit, patients are required to complete redundant paperwork, which staff members must input into IT systems. As a result, the process leads to long patient wait times and the increased potential for error; it also has a negative impact on patient satisfaction.

To improve the patient experience, the founders of Maitland, Fla.-based Galvanon, a subsidiary of NCR Corp., developed a healthcare-related self-service solution designed to automate the patient check-in process and to facilitate the capture of accurate patient data.

Galvanon's MediKiosk has been implemented in healthcare facilities across the United States. One of its most successful deployments has been at the Tampa, Fla.-based H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute.

The Moffitt cancer center opened its doors in 1986 and provides 14 patient-care programs. The center was looking for a way to streamline its patient registration process and to automate the collection of patient data when it first discovered the MediKiosk.

"One of the things that healthcare hasn't done is kept up with trends in how we process patients," said Ed Martinez, Moffitt's vice president and chief information officer.

Martinez spent four months looking for an automated self-service solution that would help the Moffitt cancer center track its more than 20,000 outpatients. He also wanted to provide a way to capture and easily access important healthcare data normally buried in a pile of paperwork.

"Galvanon was the best approach that we found, not only to improve the patient process, but to capture discreet patient data," Martinez said.

Since implementing the solution, Moffitt has reduced staff time spent filing and managing forms by 50 percent. In addition, through the use of the MediKiosk and its wireless version, the eClipboard, Moffitt has been able to streamline the collection of patient data for its Total Cancer Care initiative, a program that enables researchers to create personalized cancer treatments based on molecular data, medical and treatment histories, and patient-reported treatment responses, among other variables. That information also can be shared between the center and affiliate network locations.

"By using Galvanon's product, we can take questions, automate the theme and make them relevant to each patient's visit," Martinez said.

The patient check-in process has become more efficient, too.

Patients can now identify themselves with the swipe of their driver's license, or credit, hospital or other magnetic-strip card. Once the card is swiped, they are prompted to enter additional identifying information into the kiosk. From there, they can enter or verify demographic and insurance information, review and sign registration consent forms, and complete the check-in process. If a patient does not have an identification card, the kiosk is able to take his photograph and store it in the database for future reference.

Moffitt has the ability to customize, manage and update the MediKiosk software as its needs evolve. In addition, the system is directly tied to Moffitt's patient database, so health histories and other updates are fed into the MediKiosk in real-time.

Ninety-five percent of Moffitt cancer center patients have adopted the technology, and employees have noticed a big improvement in the patient-registration process.

"Today's patients clearly want more control of their own care, and that includes reducing time spent checking in for appointments at hospitals and clinics," said Mike Webster, vice president of self-service solutions at NCR. "Fortunately, the successful use of self-service solutions in other industries has paved the way for health care organizations like Moffitt to utilize self-service in a way that both minimizes wait times and improves satisfaction."

By implementing Galvanon's MediKiosk, healthcare providers can automate patient registration procedures, eliminate the need for manual data input and boost the overall patient experience.