What are the benefits of mobile check-in compared to traditional self-service kiosks?

In many healthcare organizations, self check-in to appointments has become a daily routine. Self check-in has clear advantages – it saves healthcare resources from being tied to support-related tasks. Instead, healthcare personnel can focus on more meaningful work.

Patient experience improves significantly when the traditional queuing at the front desk is replaced with self check-in and medical questionnaires can be filled out independently. Self check-in has also reduced queues that are caused by Monday morning peaks, a typical phenomenon in healthcare, when the patient flow is much higher than the weekly average flow. 

Typically, self check-in is implemented in healthcare organizations with different self service kiosks. However, the world is changing and self-service models are developing towards more mobile solutions. What kind of benefits does the mobile check-in have compared to a traditional self-service kiosk?

1. Remote queuing / waiting

The impacts and restrictions caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are still fresh in our minds. How could we avoid human contacts also in healthcare? Thanks to mobile check-in, patients no longer have to wait in the same lobby, which decreases the risk of catching infectious diseases. Patients receive information on their waiting time and a call in notification on their mobile device, which means that they can wait for their turn wherever they like and keep a safe distance to other patients.

2. More efficient utilization of rooms and service reliability

Self-service kiosks will stand their ground, but in health care organizations the use of mobile self check-in streamlines the utilization of rooms even more. Mobile check-in decreases the need for kiosks without having to increase the number of personnel. Mobile solutions are also a more reliable option - self-service kiosks consist of many various hardware and software components which may occasionally suffer from disruptions.

3. No contagious surfaces

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic,  also our company started to see our own self check-in solutions in a new light. Kiosks with touch screens may in certain situations increase the risk of catching an infection, so we developed our own mobile check-in solution to help our customers minimize the infection risk in their premises. Using a smartphone instead of a self check-in device or visiting a front desk doesn’t expose a patient to bacteria or viruses more than normal phone usage. During the pandemic, hospitals and other healthcare units can increase patient safety by offering their patients a mobile self check-in solution instead of a self-service kiosk.

4. No additional apps needed

Mobile apps are great when you use a certain service frequently. A random citizen doesn’t use healthcare services very often, and even frequent users don’t want to install an app that is only used for checking in or some other simple action. The mobile check-in web application is part of Axel Encounter and it works on all modern smartphones without any extra apps or plugins.

5. Modern solutions

The world becomes mobile a lot quicker than we think. In the future, our basic assumption is that any service must be accessible with a phone. Our mobile self-service solution provides healthcare organizations with a quick way to change their operations so that they respond better to the needs of a modern consumer.

6. Location

The kiosk solutions of Axel Encounter ensure that patients are always in the right place at the right time. The healthcare personnel know exactly when the patient can be called in. This increases the utilization rate, that is, the number of patients since waiting times will be shorter and there will be less idle time.  

We have included the familiar features from our kiosk solution in our mobile self check-in solution. The current service level is not compromised although the self check-in is done partly on patients’ devices.