ED Check-In Kiosks
Posted by WhiteCoat on September 16, 2007
Is this a good idea?
According to this study, many of the patients who seek care in hospitals are “functionally illiterate.” The average reading comprehension is sixth grade. I’m sure that there are a large subset of patients that don’t understand English at all. How will people who can’t understand the instructions enter their information accurately?
And what do we then do about people who check off a plethora of symptoms that do not apply to their current condition? I have fever, weakness, headache, vision changes, sore throat, runny nose, cough, chest pain, palpitations, difficulty breathing, body aches, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting (is that how you spell it?), neck pain, back pain, stomach pain, burning when I pee, and a hemorrhoid that has been bothering me for six months.
What about people in MVAs who have “La Macarena“? (Do the dance and everywhere your hands touch is where there is a pain complaint – arm, arm, shoulder, shoulder, head, head, hip, hip, Aaaaaaayy Macarena!) Whole body x-ray from triage?
After a while, I’m sure that people would learn to game the system to get seen earlier. For example, checking off “chest pain” and then getting back to a room right away before saying “oh, by the way, my tooth has really been bothering me a lot lately.”
I’d like to see a follow up story on how well this system works.
sue said
Hi there WC … oh wait, that means something else … oh well … just found your blog last week and am now happy to admit i’m addicted. I’m an ER nurse and can identify with your thoughts! thanks!
rlamberts said
If 25% of the patients can do it and take 25% of the workload on the registration staff, then it is a good thing. Plus, the computer systems can have a huge number of languages available, much more than an ED staff. For the 25% (or more) they are served very quickly. For the remaining people, they have less competition. Clearly this works better with higher socioeconomic classes, but it still can improve flow through the ED.
ERnursey said
Oh for the love of GOD! What will they think of next? Walk up Vicodin prescription machines, just push the button for your drug of choice. But seriously, I’ve triaged a patient with a chief complaint of constipation who I noticed was pale, slightly sweaty and a little SOB. I listened to the little voice and took him back to a room, he was having a MI. Or the guy who was insistent he was having an allergic reaction to the flu shot he had two weeks ago because he was feeling crappy ever since. He looked like crap and when I took his pulse it was 180, he was in SVT. If you take the human element out of triage how many of these cases will be overlooked? It is only a matter of time until someone signing in with ‘constipation’ is left in the lobby because it is not urgent and dies.
GuitarGirlRN said
Wow. Scary! At our Ed, we have patient relations “greeters” who help the walk-ins fill out their complaint on a form I use to call them in for triage. This way I can look over the complaints and decide who to see first, and the greeters can call back and tell me when someone out there isn’t looking so good.
Although once I got a form on which the patient had written, “toe James Bond.” I asked the greeter “Who wrote this?” and she pointed to a man who was floridly psychotic, rocking back and forth in the corner and talking to a fake ficus plant.
nhmind said
Have you noticed how average folks, presumably not in pain or bleeding, have trouble with the airport check-in kiosks? It takes an army of agents hovering over the clueless massess, just to get a boarding pass. You ER folks better start planning for staffing up to manage the self check-in process and to clean the bodily fluids off the touch screen monitors…ick.
Jenny said
Touch screens? Ewww. I can just see that as the best place to pick up something you didn’t have before you came (cold, flu, worse). I like using machines to check out my groceries and to get my flight information, but I want to see a real person when I feel horrible enough to go to the ER.