Women’s College Hospital (WCH) recently implemented Check-In Kiosks in their waiting rooms to helps simplify the check-in process for both patients and staff. However, the team at WCH saw the potential for kiosks to do much more than simply change the arrival status in the EMR schedule and update demographics. By taking advantage of an Ocean form with built-in logic, the team knew the Kiosks could also play an important role in an automated infection control strategy.
Our client success associate, Joey, worked with WCH to develop a unique workflow: upon check-in, the kiosks triage patients and provide different instructions based on their responses.
Patients start the self check-in process by reporting if they have the following: an unexplained rash, diarrhea, cough, or fever. If they report a rash, cough, and fever, they are asked to sanitize their hands, put on a mask and see a secretary who will escort them to the isolation ward. A patient who reports diarrhea will get a different message, while healthy patients advance to their demographics screen for review and can take a seat when they are done.
How can I replicate this in my practice?
WCH achieves this workflow through a series of Tablet Rules and images of the instructions embedded in Ocean Forms. The instructional messages are written in an external program like Microsoft Word to control size and font, then uploaded as images into the Ocean form.
After creating the forms, you can edit tablet rules by navigating to the Tablets tab in the Ocean Portal. If you need help building forms or creating rules, visit our support guide or get in touch with our team and we can help you with your custom set of triggers.
Using this method, clinics can limit the exposure and amount of time infectious individuals spend at the check-in kiosks. As a best practice, it’s always a good idea to ensure hand sanitizer or other methods of medical-grade disinfectant are readily accessible nearby.
Does your clinic use check-in kiosks? We’d love to hear about how you use kiosks or any of the other products in the Ocean Patient Engagement suite. Let us know at [email protected].
