If patients are having any type of trouble with kiosk registration at Naperville, IL-based Edward–Elmhurst Health, the kiosk instructs them to go to a registration person instead, without the patient having to ask for help.
“We have a bunch of ‘kick out’ reasons,” says Miguel Vigo IV, revenue cycle system director of the Patient Access and Pre-Service Center. The kiosk will stop the registration if any of these things occur:
• If the patient is using the kiosk for an appointment type that requires a registration staff member.
In this case, the kiosk saves the data that previously was entered, and displays a screen that says, “Please go to the registration desk located to your right, and a registration staff member will help you with your check-in.”
• If a new patient is trying to use the kiosk.
These patients will be directed to the check-in desk. “We don’t want to use the kiosk for brand-new patients,” says Vigo. “It would take them 20 to 30 minutes to type in all the information, and we can do that in less than five minutes.”
• If the patient is in the wrong place.
“They may be trying to check in, but are actually supposed to be across the hospital campus,” says Vigo. In this case, a screen alerts the patients that they’re at the wrong location and displays a map showing them where to check in for their appointments.
Vigo previously worked for a consulting group that helped hospitals to roll out registration kiosks. “A lot of hospitals didn’t take advantage of the full scope of the functionality,” he says. “Now that I have the opportunity, I am putting that in place.”
Many hospitals used the kiosks for check-in but not for collecting payments, or they collected payments but didn’t allow patients to sign documents. Vigo expects patients to be far more satisfied if they can do all those things at one time at the kiosk.
Otherwise, “[t]he patient may wonder why they even went to the kiosk, if they end up having to go to a person anyway,” says Vigo.
