South Karelia Central Hospital (Finland) has introduced a self-registration system for its customers. The solution improves customer service and privacy protection and frees up resources for direct patient care.
"Even after this short experience, it seems like a real waste of working time to ask patients to provide their information at the reception. Most patients are easily able to register independently using the automatic registration machine, and thus manage to avoid queuing," says Riitta Lehtonen, head nurse at the Surgical and Orthopaedic Outpatient Department.
Traditional registration at the reception takes between two and ten minutes. At the registration machine, the average registration time is one minute and ten seconds. The quickest customers do it in five seconds.
"Privacy protection is improved, because the machines are equipped with screen protectors and personal information is no longer called out for everyone to hear," Lehtonen continues.
From the hospital's perspective, the machine reduces routine tasks and releases nursing staff to perform other duties. The concentration of registration to a single registration point instead of having individual points at each outpatient department improves efficiency.
"The new functions will modernize our hospital and make it a standard-bearer, which will increase its attractiveness. When the system is adopted throughout the Central Hospital, we can free up between four to six secretaries to perform other duties," says Toni Suihko, chief information officer at South Karelia Social and Health Care District.
"This means we have more employees doing work that cannot be done by machines, which is of key importance with an ageing population," adds Lehtonen.
The introduction of self-registration is part of the district's strategic goal of increasing electronic services to citizens. Through the e-services project, the whole social and health care district is engaged in broad collaboration with the several hospital districts in the area aiming to develop electronic health and social care services.
This extensive and close collaboration project is exceptional in Finland in terms of its scale and approach."The system will then cover a population area of about half a million Finns,” says Suihko.
"Electronic services must be provided; there are no options. The selected partner should be a player who does not sell semi-finished solutions but develops functionality to meet your needs and is able to integrate it with other systems, just as Tieto has done with the self-registration system solution. Good solutions spread fast," Suihko points out.
Related news articles:
- Tieto's Profile
About Tieto
Tieto is the leading IT service company in Northern Europe providing IT and product engineering services. Our highly specialized IT solutions and services complemented by a strong technology platform create tangible business benefits for our local and global customers. As a trusted transformation partner, we are close to our customers and understand their unique needs. With about 18 000 experts, we aim to become a leading service integrator creating the best service experience in IT.