It's being billed as the ATM for the healthcare industry: Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is developing a computerized kiosk that can take a patient's medical history, weight, pulse, blood pressure, and other vital signs as well as simple blood tests including glucose and cholesterol tests. The kiosk's raison d'être is to bring relief to the overburdened healthcare system, streamline check-in processes and keep tabs on patients who may not typically visit the doctor's office. The kiosks will debut in the UK in June for pilot testing.

The Windows-based kiosk is the brainchild of Ronald Dixon, director of the Virtual Practice Project. Dixon's kiosk includes a desktop computer, a blood-pressure cuff, a scale, a pulse oximeter (to measure blood oxygen levels), and a peak-flow meter (to determine whether someone's airways are constricted) plus a blood-testing device that is commonly used in emergency rooms for measuring cholesterol and glucose levels. While the envisioned commercial product will be fully-automated, the current version requires a trained assistant to do the finger stick for the blood sample. 

So where will we find these kiosks? Dixon thinks they should be placed in supermarkets and big-box stores where customers could walk up and type in their password protected information, answer check-up questions and get a checkup.

"The results would then go to your provider, and that provider sends a message back to you the way you want it," Dixon told Technology Review, "either through e-mail or texting--about what to do with that result." 

The whole interaction with the kiosk takes about ten minutes. Those kiosk users found to be at high-risk for chronic diseases will receive a phone call from their physician following the kiosk checkup.

For more read this Technology Review article.