August 16th, 2007
Today's Debate: Can kiosks save healthcare?
Remember NCR?
It’s over a century old. The Dayton, Ohio-based company was originally National Cash Register.
In 1915, after getting caught trying to monopolize that business one of its top executives, Thomas J. Watson, left to join another outfit he renamed IBM. You may have heard of it.
These days NCR is growing fastest in the kiosk business, and it’s there they aim to revolutionize health care. The front end of it anyway.
Working through a unit called Galvanon, acquired in 2005, NCR is expanding its work in health care kiosks with eSignature, a unit that can get those pesky forms signed.
Its new base hardware is now down to 11 pounds, so kiosks can be wall-mounted rather than taking up desk or floor space. In a small office they can be handed to new patients like a clipboard.
Getting people into the system, and past the front desk, can reduce wait times a lot and improve customer satisfaction, a lot.
Galvanon’s MediKiosk can handle check-in, appointments, consent forms, co-pay collections via credit card, and can even be programmed to help people get to the right room in your hospital.
But how small an office can take advantage, how big are the salary savings, and what percentage of your patient population can use them, remain key questions.
If you’ve tried these systems out, maybe you can answer them for us?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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