ELY- Visitors to the Essentia Health Clinic in Ely will notice a large change at the check-in desk. Instead of a person, a large green countertop kiosk now takes up the center of the reception desk.
“A person is still there,” said Tonya Loken, the Community Relations Director of Essentia. “Patients can still talk to a receptionist if they want. What we’ve done with the new kiosks is to add more ways to check in.”
Patients coming to the clinic now have three ways to check in: through the new kiosk, through the MyChart app on a patient’s smart device, and through an iPad which will connect a patient via video to a receptionist.
“We now have different ways to check in for different people,” Loken explained. “We’ve reduced lines, saved time, and provided our patients with a choice.”
At the Ely clinic, while the kiosk is eye-catching, the smaller iPad at the clinic is easy to miss. The Timberjay tested both the kiosk and the iPad check-in. The iPad connected to a live receptionist in seconds with good video and audio quality. The kiosk, on the other hand, was mounted a bit on the high side for those of shorter stature, making the screen difficult to use and read.

Zero jobs lost
The Timberjay asked Essentia if the new kiosks would displace any clinic employees.
“Essentia is a people-oriented health care organization,” Loken said. “Zero jobs will be eliminated. A person will still be there at reception for those who want to talk to a person.” The catch is that the person at the reception desk may be on the other end of the reception counter iPad.
“No one is going to lose their job because of the kiosks.”

Slow roll-out
Essentia investigated check-in kiosks for its clinics last year. “We talked about implementing this system for about two months,” wrote Essentia Media Relations Specialist Tony Matt in an email. “We then ran two pilot programs.”
The first pilot was in Fargo; it started in February and lasted two months. It was followed by a second pilot in March in Essentia’s eastern market, which lasted one month. The pilots tested kiosks made by Olea Kiosks Inc. of Cerritos, Calif. Olea manufactures kiosks that are already compatible with Epic and MyChart, the medical records software that Essentia uses.
Essentia considered the pilots to be successful. “We then decided to move forward with a full rollout after that,” said Matt.
Essentia Health plans to place check-in kiosks at all 79 clinics, including its new clinic in Staples, which opened this week. The health system hopes to have the new kiosks installed in all of its clinics before the end of September.