West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust have signed a contract for iSoft’s patient check-in kiosks in a deal worth £275,000.
West Hertfordshire is taking eight of the Savience kiosks for its outpatient departments at Watford General, Hemel Hempstead, and St Albans City hospitals.
The trust, which deals with 374,000 outpatient appointments a year, has signed for a fully managed service over five years, which includes six plasma screens and audio equipment for patient calling.
North Cumbria has ordered two kiosks initially, for the West Cumberland Hospital at Whitehaven, under a proof-of-concept project.
The kiosks allow patients to check-in for appointments automatically and to update their demographic details. In addition they notify staff of patient arrivals and direct patients to the appropriate waiting area.
Sarah Toll, IT business applications manager at West Hertfordshire, said: “The system will improve the patient journey through outpatients by providing a streamlined service that reduces queuing and keeps people informed at all times.
“The Savience solution will make it possible to reduce the amount of money spent on staff employed to support outpatient services.
"The beauty of the system is that the remaining clinical staff will be able to deliver nursing care, rather than be sidetracked to deal with administration tasks, while administration staff can concentrate on improving data quality.”
The kiosks will be integrated with existing iSoft patient administration systems. However, Cumbria will also implement a bi-directional interface so that its PAS can be updated automatically with changes to patient demographic details.
Crea Simpson, Cumbria’s outpatient manager, added: “We will use the pilot phase to assess the benefits of using the Savience database to drive a deferred or ‘partial’ booking system for future review appointments.”
The orders follow a deal with Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust in September 2010 for five Savience touch-screen kiosks for Darent Valley Hospital.