I recently went to one of those Righttime
Medical Care clinics (used to be Nighttime Pediatrics) to get
checked out for a cold that had lingered for three weeks (turned
out to be a sinus infection). These are clinics, usually with a
long wait while in the office, but same-day appointments. They see
the usual things: colds, sniffles etc. as well as things that used
to mean a trip to the emergency room: broken bones, cuts needing
stitches etc.
Anyway, I don't go there often, and this time, they had upgraded
from their usual paper stack to a set of Windows CE-based touch
tablets that they call "E.R.I.C" This device is a wireless Windows
CE Pro 5.0 touch tablet provided by Phreesia.
Creepy anthropomorphized orange tablet aside, the experience
itself is pretty good. They hand you the tablet with your account
already pulled up. Phreesia is a software + hardware + service
offering. The devices are provided to the clinics, and Phreesia
handles the back-end services themselves.
I wasn't planning on taking pictures in the office until I saw
these; my phone doesn't do well in low-light. However, you can see
the Windows CE Sticker on the back
You pick the reason you're here from a list of finger-friendly
buttons. There are a number of screens like this that ask about
medical history for yourself and family. The usual things that
would be a large column of checkboxes on the back-side of a paper
form.
Since this was my first visit, I also needed to enter in my
insurance information from my card.
Three listboxes to set the date was actually pretty efficient
for touch
This screen shows why long email addresses are a royal pain
:)
The last page requests a signature. There's a pen docked at the
top to handle that. There's a card swipe on the right, but I never
used it. If I had a co-pay, I believe I could swipe a credit card
there.
The benefits to the clinic are they get data without any bad
handwriting to translate, and they potentially get payments out of
the way right at the start. The benefit to the patient is you can
fill this out on a computer, without any writing (I hate writing
and filling in forms). Obviously the patient also gets the benefit
of the data being correct :)
Since my own doctor also uses this system(just found that out)
the medical records are shared and automatically updated in his
office - another nice benefit.
Once you are done, the system offers you medical information to
entertain you while you wait "sponsored content"; or you can just
return it.
It's nice to see this type of technology out there in the field.
It's even nice to use it yourself and find it useful :)