A Waiting Room Kiosk for Patient Registration in the Physician's
Office Is Now within Reach

Self-service kiosks are springing up everywhere you turn from airports to zoos. It should come as no surprise that many healthcare facilities including emergency rooms and physician’s offices are taking advantage of kiosks in waiting rooms to eliminate the errors and the time-consuming paper shuffle of the patient registration process.

As physicians' practices begin to utilize EMR/EHR systems to create “paperless” offices, it makes even less sense to continue using the traditional clipboard full of papers with a pen tethered to it for patient registration.  Many offices have patients sign paper documents, then have a staff member scan and store the document in electronic form in an EMR/EHR system only to then file the documents again in paper charts.

A patient registration kiosk in the waiting room can capture the patient’s signature in electronic form and store the e-signature along with the document in electronic form automatically in the practice's EMR/EHR or billing and practice management system.  This not only avoids the filing and storage associated with paper records, but it also eliminates the need for staff time to be spent scanning paper documents in order to store them electronically.

As with other kiosk applications, a patient kiosk can dramatically improve the efficiency and accuracy of the new patient registration process by essentially putting patients to work for the practice.  Patients complete the data entry processes themselves in a more accurate and direct manner with no more effort than would normally be required of them.  Thus the same amount of patient effort required to complete new patient registration paperwork in written form can be applied to a computerized process that eliminates intermediate data entry, errors transcribing hand written information, document scanning, and the filing involved when processing the information on paper.

The information requested on existing paper health history forms can instead be collected in electronic form including the patient's medical history, surgical history, allergies, current medications, social history, and family medical history.  With the right patient kiosk software it can be as easy if not easier to customize the history questions used by a particular type of practice in electronic form than it is to create customized paper forms.

Another natural step beyond a workstation PC as a patient kiosk in the waiting room involves enlisting the patient's own home computer as a patient registration kiosk.  Extending the reach of the patient input screens to a website allows new patients to enter their registration information and fill out medical history and other questionnaires from any Internet enabled PC before ever setting foot in the office.  Then when the patient arrives in the office they can electronically sign documents on a waiting room kiosk to have the e-signed documents added to the patient record that was already created using the website.

Data collected directly from patients through the waiting room kiosk is then written into the EMR/EHR or medical billing and practice management system and becomes instantly accessible from any PC running the management software with only a few keystrokes or mouse clicks. Using the Patient Junction software with an ordinary Windows-based PC as a waiting room kiosk can replace that messy clipboard full of paper for many patients and improve the patient's experience.  Where similar systems have been in use long enough to measure patient adoption, the rate of use among patients is reaching a tipping point at which the majority of patients are opting for the computerized route when offered a choice.

Patient Junction can dramatically reduce the paper shuffle associated with a new patient’s first office visit by eliminating the paper at its source and take physicians' offices one more step toward a paperless office.  Best of all Patient Junction can be implemented with the investment of a small fraction of the time and expense involved with other more complicated systems.

Even if your practice isn't the largest one on your block, it can still be the most innovative and streamlined.  Contact an AltaPoint VAR company today and ask for help evaluating what Patient Junction can do for your practice when used with an AltaPoint version 6, 8, or 9 system!