King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is to become the first in Europe to install patient self-service kiosks supplied by NCR.
The touch-screen kiosks are designed to simplify checking-in and out procedures for patients. A total of 50 MediKiosks will initially be deployed this autumn in the London hospital’s dermatology, haematology, orthopedics, urology and general surgery clinics.
If successful, the roll-out will then extend to Accident and Emergency, radiology and other outpatient departments.
The kiosks enable patients to quickly inform the hospital that they have arrived for an appointment, view and update their contact details and complete questionnaires. Receptionists will be available to assists patients when using the kiosks if required.
Howard Lewis, ICT project manager at King’s said of the project: “It will help to improve the immediacy and privacy of patient communications as well as reduce queuing and paperwork, enabling our staff to focus on delivering excellent clinical care and enhancing the patient experience at King’s.”
Patients using the kiosks will be asked to check their contact details at the kiosks, to ensure the hospital holds the correct details for them and they receive communications for future appointments.
The system will also allow receptionists to monitor whether consultations are in progress, about to begin or are being delayed via a traffic light system.
If slots become available early the system will notify patients by broadcasting announcements to call them forward. It will also alert patients about delays using a real time ‘ticker’ on the digital displays.
NCR has already deployed the self-service systems across more than 170 healthcare organisations in the US. Last year, E-Health Europe announced that the company would be launching the system in Europe.
Gordon Lorimer, NCR Healthcare director commented: “We are used to running large-scale installations, delivering crucial availability levels as near to 100 percent as possible.
“We look forward to providing this new service, which will benefit hundreds of thousands of patients who use King’s services each year.”
The contract follows a competitive tender as part of the Official Journal of the European Union process.
A spokesperson for NCR told E-Health Europe: “We are focusing primarily on the UK and German market and expecting significant announcements from Germany in the coming months.”
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NCR to launch patient kiosks in Europe
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