With the healthcare industry under tremendous financial pressure, efforts are underway to develop technologies that increase the efficiency of the patient care process. One such technology is an electronic doctor kiosk, the brainchild of Ronald Dixon, Director of the Virtual Practice Project. According to Technology Review, Dixon "imagines that his kiosk - a small, Windows-based desktop computer with just a few peripherals - could one day revolutionize doctors' visits just as ATMs transformed banking." 

The kiosk will address one of the key problems with continuity of care: primary care doctors - in short supply - are in such demand, they are often too busy to give adequate time to their patients. The kiosk has the potential to increase the efficiency of the patient care process by collecting basic information from patients. Toward this end, it has been designed to include a tabletop computer and a number of peripherals, such as a blood-pressure cuff, a scale, a pulse oximeter to measure blood oxygen levels, a peak-flow meter to determine if someone's airways are constricted, and a blood-testing device used in hospital ERs to measure cholesterol and glucose levels. Once the kiosk collects the information, it will direct it to the physician prior to the office visit. It can also help physicians intervene earlier in chronic illnesses by prompting patients to answer a variety of health questions that will help them become more proactive in managing their own heath.

One concern is that patients will feel less connected with their doctors and may feel resentful that the use of technology is replacing physician-patient time. In addition, the new technology must be able to fit into the clinical process without upsetting other staff members, in particular, the nursing staff. The hope is that such technology as Robodoc can help bring relief to an overburdened healthcare system by eliminating some tasks that are routine and data collection driven. This, in turn, may help give healthcare providers more quality time to spend with their patients.

The system will be field tested in supermarkets across England starting this June. As noted in Technology Review, the United Kingdom is an ideal testing ground because of its nationalized healthcare system in which each resident has an assigned primary-care physician and electronic health records. As a result, the infrastructure for sharing and responding to the results is already in place. "They're trying to catch people who typically don't get screened, since a lot of the population doesn't go to the doctor unless they're sick," Dixon says. "But everyone goes to the drugstore or grocery store once in a while."

News Release: Are healthcare kiosks the next big medical technology?   http://ohmygov.com/blogs/general_news/archive/2009/03/04/are-health-care-kiosks-the-next-big-medical-technology.aspx  March 4, 2009