Vanderbilt University Medical Center is a comprehensive healthcare delivery system, providing services across 6-hospital systems at 32-campus locations, physician practices, and affiliates throughout Tennessee. Vanderbilt University Medical Center provided healthcare services to millions of patients in 2013 and is nationally ranked as a Top-15 provider in many specialties.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center became interested in check-in kiosks as a way to improve operations in three key areas: (1) patient satisfaction, (2) patient flow, and (3) satisfaction of patient service representatives. Expansion initiatives in the Nashville area championed using technologies that would provide a higher level of patient service, eliminating bottlenecks from the waiting rooms of new service areas.

The Solution

Vanderbilt University Medical Center selected Connected Technology Solutions (CTS) to provide the kiosk hardware and enclosure. Epic Welcome was the application used to give the kiosk workflow and connect to the Epic EHR’s business functions and StarPanel (the clinical EMR designed by Vanderbilt in use throughout the system).

Vanderbilt University Medical Center began its pilot project with the objective to check-in patients in 3-areas:

(1) Preoperative Evaluation clinic, (2) Pediatric Rehabilitation unit, and (3) Radiology. Staff greeters were used during the pilot to assist patients and address questions. The pilot was quickly expanded, and kiosks were deployed to 11 additional areas, allowing patients to pay copays via credit and debit cards to the CTS kiosk workflow.

The Results

The initial reaction of patients and patient service representatives was so positive that the pilot was expanded just 5-months after the initial go-live.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has since expanded the use of CTS patient check-in kiosks to ambulatory settings, including clinics in dermatology, surgical weight loss, and women’s health, among others.

Vanderbilt has continued to add functionality to the CTS kiosk workflow, allowing patients to read and sign forms and consents electronically. Patients may also access their schedule of current appointments and view and print a summary of future-date appointments.

Kiosk usage remains optional – patients may complete some or all registration tasks at a CTS kiosk. Starting simple and adding functionality over time was an important strategy to allow patients and staff time to become familiar with the new process and to identify best practices for rollout across the system.

Vanderbilt surveyed patients and staff for feedback and found the following:

CTS Check-in kiosks reduced/eliminated lines and decreased wait times.
The average check-in time at a kiosk was 2 minutes.
More than 500,000 check-ins were completed annually using CTS kiosks.
Staff were pleased to spend more time with patients with complex check-in requirements or special needs.

As Vanderbilt University Medical Center continues the rollout of patient kiosks, additional functionality is being considered, including:

Identification of patients who are part of research studies
Medicare Secondary Payer Questionnaires (MSPQ)
Tablet kiosks for new patient registration and forms completion

For more information on patient check-in services, please contact CTS at info@blog.connectedts.com.