Best Practices Making everyone’s lives better with kiosks

In this Podcast, Matthew Lewis, Darwin Rivera, and Duane Foote discuss the finest ways to improve everyone’s lives. Learn about how kiosks save time, relieve stress in staffed lobbies, and protect patients in healthcare facilities.

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):

Powering trusted identities of the world's people, places, and things every day. Millions of people in more than 100 countries use our products and services to securely access physical and digital Places over 2 billion things that need to be identified, verified, and tracked are connected through HID Global's Technology.

Speaker 2 (00:29):

Hello again, welcome back to our third, or first or second, depending on what order you're watching in lunch and Learn series for Safe for Healthcare. This time we're gonna talk about kiosks and really how we feel kiosks that help can help make we say everyone's lives better. But we're gonna get into that a little bit just so everyone is all good. Kinda contextually aware of what we're gonna be talking about today. So the last couple, we've talked about inpatient, faci facilities, outpatient facilities, largely in the context of patients and visitors. But today's gonna extend a little bit into some other identities that may be coming into a healthcare organization that you're still wanting to keep track of who they are, where they're going, why they're here contractors and vendors being some of those primary wants. So again, safe for healthcare is really addressing a, a pretty broad spectrum of identities and physical access needs.

Speaker 2 (01:26):

And so with that, let's get started on our first topic here, team. So let's get kicked off with how a kiosk is complimentary for, for a staff lobby. And Dwayne, you and I were talking about this and that word compliment's actually a really key word in this whole thing, isn't it? Yes, it is. I'm looking at it. And yes, it's a very, it, it is a very strong word when it comes to this environment that we're talking about. Another word that we try to use, utilize when we talk about kiosk is augment. Augment that, that, that flow of patients and augment some of that work that stress off of either your guest services individuals and allowing some some individuals who, you know, feel free, that want to, you know, take advantage of the technology you have available for them.

Speaker 2 (02:16):

Yeah, we talked about that a little bit last time with the, the, the out service. Sorry, Dar, I wanna cut you off there. Kind of being able to flow visitors into kind of the, the vein they want to go based on maybe their proclivities or, or comfort with technology. But, you know, being able to have the two coexist within a space I think is helpful for those types of populations. Darwin, what were you gonna say? So, I, I, what I was gonna add, I is that, you know, it, it goes to help define that visitor experience, that patient experience that even when you're an inpatient and outpatient or you are a vendor coming in, you know, a a a medical sales rep. So you, you have all these populations where, where you have not only, you know, you want to be able to keep them safe and to, you know, have, and to the flow, but it also helps with, you know, this, this very common team in, in, in the industry about workflow efficiencies.

Speaker 2 (03:17):

Because, you know, when you, you want, you want that throughput, you know, if you have a recurring visitor that, that you have their information and they can, they feel comfortable with the kiosk, then, you know, you have the, the, the opportunity of re you know, reducing the lines on on on the, on the, you know, on the visitor desk. You know, you know, sometimes you, you, you have the volunteers, enough volunteers to, to man the desk. Sometimes the volunteers are no enough, especially, you know, if you combine that earlier, one of the webinars we were talking about, the reporting and being able to understand the traffic patterns on, on, on your, on your, on your distant visitor points. You can use the, the kiosks to make sure that, you know, even when you are not fully staffed, you are still able to maintain an acceptable throughput because you know the last thing that you wanted, you know, you tried to rush to get into either an appointment or trying to go visit a family member, that you are able to, you know, have that, that quick frictionless experience to help, you know, move with that and, and achieve that, those operational efficiencies.

Speaker 2 (04:28):

Yeah. You touched on something there, we kind of talked about it a little bit in, in previous ones, but that concept also of different individuals that are coming in and kind of giving them a workflow that's more specific to their needs. Maybe it's a different different station. Dwayne, what are you seeing from some of the conversations you're having around customers, prospects, individuals within the industry? Thinking about how a kiosk can help kind of with the flow of different groups across a, a building? 'cause You know, a lot of these, these healthcare facilities are pretty massive at least some of the ones I've been in. So how are they thinking about it from a, I guess funneling of traffic kind of point of view? You go here, you go there, kind say, yeah, so the kiosk is, is great for for, for, so taking away or, or limiting that manual check-in process or like Darwin said you know, freeing up the space of guest services so you don't have long lines, right?

Speaker 2 (05:40):

So it, it's a very good tool to be able to allow Matthew or Darwin or Adam to check in, grab their information, and then move about the facility. So we find that people are, are steering in kiosk because it's a way to relieve high populated areas and reduce stress by allowing individuals to, again, not have to wait on these long lines. But now you have kiosk that allows 'em to now facilitate an automated process to check in. And, you know, I something that, yeah, I mean, and this, this, I see, I see a lot of planners or not, not only in healthcare, but in other industries where, where people are getting more used to the idea of having that, okay, I, I go and, and I, I just do it myself and then I have to wait, you know, you know, wait in line or, or anything.

Speaker 2 (06:31):

You know, just like, you know, good example is is that any anybody that has gone to, to a supermarket of, of some of the big bucks retailers, you, you, you, you know, you check out your, your own your own purchases. Now, you know, there, there, there's not, there's no difference when you going to a kiosk in the hospital to, to get your batch. And especially for those, eh, eh you know, routine visits that, that don't, you know, don't require a a you know, like for example, eh, a a person that has already been cleared through the checklist or is a, a, a, a recurrent visitor, you know, we can make those visits efficient and don't, you know, and when we need to so what that, that result is that then we can focus on those that, you know, are watch list hits.

Speaker 2 (07:20):

So, you know, they, they might be be try to get around to using the kiosk, but at the same time you protect your, your, your visitors, your patients, your employees, by making sure that the controls that you have defined around watch lists and and whatnot are still applied. And, and, and, and to keep everyone safe. Yeah. Thinking of it as an extension, not a substitute back to complimenting. It's a way of, of extending kind of that, that program. And, and, and I think that goes back to what we started with. The, the word compliment I think is important. 'cause We often, something new comes about or something that's perceived as taking from, you know, our individual roles are con contributing roles to an organization. In this case, it is meant to maybe free up a little bit of time, but that doesn't mean that the person at the front desk or the nurse taking inputs or, or, you know, incoming visitors isn't still gonna be busy.

Speaker 2 (08:24):

I mean, I would imagine these are gonna be in particularly trafficked places, back to Dwayne, your comment on stress to help relieve some of the stress in an overall lobby experience. I know a lot of those lobbies will get busy. You tensions can build and, and everyone feeds off each other. And so it's all just kind of an escalating contributing factor to some of the overriding topics and, you know, in top of mind today around workplace violence and things like that. So I think viewing it as a compliment is so important, not a substitute. In fact, Dwayne, you were mentioning some of the ways, and this will kind of bridge into the next topic of considerations maybe a little bit. So, you know, thinking about how staffed versus unstaffed time during the day rotations of people what are you seeing and hearing from, from the industry around that?

Speaker 2 (09:20):

Is this something where they're reliant on a kiosk just during the day or just during the night, or kind of a mixture? You know, it's, it's a little bit of a, of a mixture. Is it a values rate as a whole? When you, when you come into organizations that don't have any type of tracking of visitors, you know, they tend to, let's call it, pilot the system and and probably the less congested timeframe, which is typically overnight, you know, and as it, as it becomes more adapted, then they all, you know, implemented during the day or during visiting hours and so forth. And then the same thing with the kiosk. You know, you typically have your trial runs where it, it'll be there. And you think about it, you have, let's say it's the 70 30 rule, right? 70% of the people will use the kiosk, the 30%.

Speaker 2 (10:05):

I always use the example, my mom, well, I go to a kiosk and touch a kiosk. She's just not going to do that. And there are other people whether it be age, demographic or what have you, will not you know, will not use a kiosk. They want to talk to a person, right? To Dage example, big boxes, they have checkouts. You know, I often like to talk to a person at a cash register opposed to using the kiosk. However, there's people who are in a rush to get out, so they don't wanna talk. They wanna use that, that, that you know, that, that technology and then move on about their day. So, you know, I I, I always say it's the 70 30 rule, 70% will use the 30% will not.

Speaker 2 (10:46):

And also, yeah, yeah. So, you know, you get, you also look at, at, at the population, you know, you know, there are some populations that are gonna be more open to to, to the technology and, you know, every organization they have their, their true north goals and, and, and that patient-centered experience, you know, that, that also all part of, of how we treat and deliver that, and we help you help organizations through. That kind of takes me in a slightly different direction. So it, the topic for this one, or I guess the, the webinar title, you, it includes the word everyone. And on the slide where we talk a little bit about safe, I mentioned contractors, Darwin, you mentioned contractors and vendors coming in and kind of getting to some of the considerations, and Dwayne, what you were just mentioning, I imagine this is also a way for an organization to maybe push those contractors.

Speaker 2 (11:39):

Maybe they can come in through a different facility to help again, with the flow of people and, you know, they come in, they know they're gonna have to do this, or they maybe can pre-check in or something like that. So they're able to get in and get through quicker. Kinda like when I go to the store and I have a thing of milk, I don't necessarily need to talk to someone after standing in line with a person that has 40 pieces of grocery. So you know, from a consideration standpoint, what are a couple of the key things for each of you just guidance wise, keep top of mind when you're thinking about kiosks as a compliment? Again, sticking with that word. So you, you hit on a lot of a lot of good points, right? So we'll talk about the patient visitor side.

Speaker 2 (12:23):

Couple, a couple of, maybe a week ago we did you know, best practices on outpatient, right? And that's, that's another one that kind of goes hand in hand with the kiosk, because with the kiosk, you know, these outpatient visits are typically one day in and out. And those are the kind of efficiencies that you're trying to provide in that healthcare environment, right? Someone to check in, get their eye appointment, get their, get their vaccination or whatever it is, and they can go on about their business. That's one, two. Then you have vendors like myself or, or Darwin, I mentioned pharmaceutical sales reps that come in for vendors and you want them to be able to check in. Your example was great. There's a separate section where maybe there's not a man desk, but there's a kiosk and, you know, most of these vendors are required to and again, policy driven are required to check in at some point in time, and they can do that through the kiosk.

Speaker 2 (13:18):

Yeah, that's a good point. Darwin, any that's, yep. So, yeah, I guess to think about on on, on Dwayne's comments, when you have a population like, you know, medical sales reps or you know, some of, some type vendor, like, you know, the guy that comes to you to do maintenance on the CT scan machine, or you have long-term relationships and like consultants and whatnot, you can have a dedicated kiosk for them to check in. That that could be separate from your, your, your inpatients or our patients. The other considerations that you had to consider too is when you're looking at implementing a kiosk, you know, how does it look like for the customer? You know? And on on the, on the previous slide, we saw a little, you know, a little tablet type device, you know, encrusted in a, in a pedestal. So their, their partners HID partners that have taken our, our, our portal and have, you know, are built to serve it from a, a hardware device, you know, with, with, with the kiosk features on it.

Speaker 2 (14:26):

Now, another consideration, you know, me, me being the, the, the, the engineering and recover recovery, I, I can tell you guys that, you know, you had to also think about the peripherals. So when you're considering the, the kiosk, you know, you know, you can look at the hardware that you, you, you look at and, and what type of experience, because a kiosk can be something as simple as having a desktop with a, you know, a, a, a mouse, a keyboard, and a monitor that is opening to the, to the web base. And our, our, our kiosk mode is, is served as, as a, as a, as a, as a web portal. So it's web-based. So you can, you know, you can open it from an Android device and I, I an iOS, a tablet or a surface tablet there. Our recommendation sometimes is that if you need to have, you know, if you wanna connect a printer, you wanna connect a, a barcode scanner, like will be the case of say that you have an outpatient appointment and they come in with a barcode to check in.

Speaker 2 (15:24):

You know, we recommend to use a, a Windows based device because it has the widest available hardware support rather than, you know, maybe an Android r o s that the, the hardware might be limited. You might just be able to capture a picture or, you know, print a, a badge if, if, if possible. So those are some of the considerations that, that you might wanna, you wanna think of when looking at the hard work, you know, or, you know, some case in, in, in a, in a clinical setting, say in a doctor's office, you know, people get handed a, a tablet. Now also, you know, with, with the, the, the they get about covid and transmission, then you also had to consider the type of, of, of kiosks and environment and make sure that you're able to, to sanitize it properly to, to make sure that everybody stays safe.

Speaker 2 (16:18):

So that's, that's some of the other considerations that you had to think of when, when, when considering in establishing kiosk. Yeah, and that's a good point. I think about kiosk could be almost a decomposed kiosk. You know, some of those pieces within a nursing station, I think of some of the floors I've been on with like kiddo, sometimes they're really cramped. So you're not gonna have space for, you know, a four or five foot free standing thing that'll just get in the way. But that, that floor may need an extra sticky badge or whatever for making sure dad is dad or kind of whatever we're needing from that standpoint. So I think that's a good point of think about the space, think about the peripherals, wired versus wifi, access to power, all of those things that you know you're gonna want to be able to put in place.

Speaker 2 (17:13):

Is it in front of or behind firewalls? That's completely different topic. We don't have to go into that one, but <laugh> yeah. You mentioned outpatients a little bit, Dwayne, any other scenarios you've run into that are kind of interesting? At some of the customer types we have, we've got some that have co-mingled, inpatient outpatient facilities. Some have dedicated of each, any other interesting scenarios you brought into that you think are worth highlighting? So we, we have it o obviously there's, there's the, the main one, which is, you know, was there from the beginning is we talked about, you know, vendors and contractors and pharmaceutical medical sales. You know, those are all individuals that can either walk up and use the kiosk, they can scan with a pre-registered QR code and make it very automatic where they're checking in and are kind of hands free or, or a very simple process to check in.

Speaker 2 (18:14):

You know, and again, we talked about the outpatient streamlining that. However, there's also one option with your inpatient. So oftentimes you have inpatients, they're in there for some extended period of time, and you have what they call pre-approved visitors. So those are the only those, those are visitors that can only visit that patient. So our solution with the kiosk can actually send them out a code and they can go to that kiosk and check in. Again, they don't have to go to the guest services desk. They can go directly to a kiosk, check in, print their bath, scan their id, and walk their way up to to submitted their, their their family friend. And obviously this is the person who's been here before. They're on the approval list. They know where they're going. They don't need way finding. 'cause Again, you know, this kiosk is not gonna talk back to you.

Speaker 2 (19:00):

It's going to print out your, your, your your information, and then you're going about your business, right? If there's more than you need to maybe directions or find out what a cafeteria is, after you check in things like that, then you want to, you know, make your way over to a guest services desk. Yeah, makes sense. I've been learning and understanding and finding out that, not necessarily learning, but you know, a lot of, a lot of our clients that use and, and even visitor manager across the board, it's very difficult to manage the checkout process of our, of our, of, of any visitor manager system. How, how do you stay honest? You know, when you have, when you have to apply visitor restrictions on patients and locations and facilities, how do you keep that, that honesty? And it's all very, very difficult, right?

Speaker 2 (19:49):

Because you know, what you, what we find people doing today is they're calling the nurses station, right? From the guest services desk. So now you're trying to check some after trying to check in, but there might be two people at that patient that he's going to see. So guest services calling the nurses desk or the nurses station. And that's, that's what she's doing. She's just sitting there waiting to answer phone calls to tell you how many visitors are in the room, right? No, that's not gonna happen. So oftentimes you find that these guys are waiting some ridiculous times to go and see family members because they're waiting for individuals to check out. So with that kiosk, you have the ability to actually check out right at that bottom. So even if you're not using it for checking in v visitors as from a patient or an outpatient or even a, you know, a vendor and contractor, it still holds a value of being able to control your, your checkout process, right?

Speaker 2 (20:41):

Again, let's talk about that 70 30 rule where if it's there, chances are you'll probably get about 70% of the people that will check out, and we can make it very simple. They can search by their name. If they have their sticky bags, they can use their sticky bags, and Darma just printed it. He had a barcode on there. Typically, all these kiosks will have a scan in, you scan the barcode confirmation number comes up, you click two more buttons and you're completely checked out. So that does help with the, the process of managing the checkout when it comes to the healthcare and the visiting management for healthcare. Now, the checkout process itself, it's, it's, it's something simple, you know, at, at the, you know, just point out to the bottom of the screen. We have the checkout link thing that is, that it's not it doesn't involve a lot of friction or, or, or a lot of effort on the, on the part of a visitor.

Speaker 2 (21:29):

And that's probably something back to our considerations and some of those things. We're talking about who's coming in certain, certain floors and certain entrance, maybe patient, patient related visitors through certain points of ingress, I'm guessing. Then you also want to think about people flowing out, maybe being able to walk through a certain exit Dwayne that goes maybe straight to the parking garage, but maybe you can't come in that way or whatever, you know, just a little tablet that lets 'em click a couple of times might be huge in terms of really understanding that population in a more real time manner. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, as, as we always say, every healthcare facility is different. So if, if that situation is applicable, then you're more than likely I would suggest something like this to, to assist with that checkout process. Oftentimes, right? Hospital is supposed to be an open and inviting or the, the understanding when hospital is open and inviting. So it's very difficult to restrict the amount of doors Covid allowed them to do that. And a lot of facilities are trying to stay in that environment to keep their, their patients and their staff and anyone in the hospital safe.

Speaker 2 (22:39):

Okay. All right. Well, any other final kind of thought kind of touch on, and then I think we're, we're done for the day. So I will reiterate for, for maybe what's the umpteenth million time. These aren't supplements to individuals and staff. This is a compliment. It is a way to maybe reduce the burden that the staffed lobby has on five or 10, 20% for an individual, which can be huge at the end of the day. Relieves their stress, potentially relieves, queuing, makes the experience better, streamlines the flow throughout the facility. Overall, and I think that's one of the things that kiosks are really helpful for is that efficiency that you've talked about at the beginning, Darwin and then obviously just think about really what you're needing for a kiosk, the flow. Just like when you have a house party or you're thinking about your catering, you don't want to put things that stop people right by the door.

Speaker 2 (23:41):

You don't want people congregating right there by the door. So, you know, think about the flow of people in your lobby. We've seen it, so I'm sure, sure. Dwayne, whether he likes to or not, you know, could maybe say, I would put it maybe over there. But you know, that's, that's kind of what, what's my final thought? I, what, what are the two you have that you wanna wrap up with? And then we will well, I'll break for lunch. I, I think you hit him on the head, Matthew. You know, the efficiency is probably my number one, obviously with this whole, with all these best practices, security is, is right up there. 'cause That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to secure the areas, right? And then with, with kiosk and with any of this visitor management stuff, a very, a, a a a a good point, but people always overlook it is signage, especially these new facilities that don't have visitor management.

Speaker 2 (24:33):

You, you'll, you'll be surprised how far signage and literature will go when you're just implementing this, these these new policies and procedures at your facility. You mean like a big sign in ear, but display, Hey, you know, we're, we're looking to protect our, our areas in a better fashion. So this is what we're doing to protect you and your loved ones while they're, while they're in the hospital or in our healthcare. You know, it's a really good point. It was one I talked to customer of ours in, in the greater Ohio River Valley area. That was top of mind for them was presenting out to the community their role as an, an advocate for community you know, pushing and promoting safety for the security of the community. I, I said several words there, redundantly, but it goes back to the, the healthcare networks being here for the community.

Speaker 2 (25:30):

So everyone being safe within it is a boon to the community as always. I think it's a great point. Darwin, what, what do you wanna wrap us up with? You know, the, you guys make excellent points. The other thing is to consider is, is is you know, making sure that you're considering what hard words you wanna do. Like, you know, when thinking about the, the, the experience or what, what services are you you comfortable doing? 'cause Like, you know, you might, you might be comfortable, you know, having a fully automated kiosk where we're, you know, I go in, you know, put my information and I get my badge and it'll be on my merry way. But you know, you, you know, somewhere some environments like for example, a children's hospital that might not be, you know really, you know, an option depending on the, on the local policies.

Speaker 2 (26:20):

So thinking about what hardware that you wanna do and, and, and the, the, the, the, the flexibility of the different platforms that you can use. You know, some platforms will have more available peripherals than others. And, and that's okay because they, depending on how your, your, your, your use cases develop, then you can leverage the technology that you're most comfortable with. And you, again, looking at that patient experience, that true north, you know, that patient-centered care, visitors center care where you can have, you know, just your branding and you, you, you, you are, you know, controls that doesn't, don't feel like, like controls within your environment to keep everybody safe and make sure that you, you know, you have that maintain good visibility on, on your environment, what's going on. I appreciate it again, this was fun. I'm sure we'll do it again soon. Darwin, thank you Dwayne. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you everyone. Thank you for hosting us and we'll call it a date. Hope to see everyone again soon. And if you didn't, this was number three in our series. I can't count three. This one's about kiosk. We've got one on outpatient, one on inpatient. And we hope you enjoyed. Have a good day. Thank you everyone. Bye. Take care. Bye-Bye.