Kiosk check-in

A kiosk is a tablet at reception where patients check themselves in. It asks for the patient's date of birth and the first two letters of their surname, shows the time and the clinician of their appointment today, and marks them Arrived when they confirm it's them. The diary updates at once.

A kiosk only records arrival. It never shows a patient's name, never lists who is booked, and never opens a form.

Pair a tablet

1. Go to Settings › Calendar › Kiosks and click Add kiosk.
2. Give the tablet a name (for example Reception iPad), choose the site whose appointments it checks in, and click Add kiosk.
3. On the tablet, open the kiosk page the settings page names, and enter the pairing code — or scan the QR code with the tablet.

The code works once, for 10 minutes. If it runs out, add the kiosk again. The tablet keeps nothing but its own pairing.

Anyone who can change settings adds and revokes kiosks. Revoke (two clicks) stops a tablet at once; pair a new one to replace it. The list shows when each tablet was last seen.

Lock the tablet to the kiosk page: use Guided Access on an iPad, or screen pinning on Android.

What patients see

1. Welcome to your practice, with boxes for the date of birth and the first two letters of the surname.
2. If exactly one patient with that date of birth and those letters has an appointment at this site today: Your appointment: 10:30 with Dr Patel. Is this you? — Yes, check me in or No.
3. Thank you, you're checked in. Please take a seat.

Accents don't matter (Östberg matches os). When nobody matches, or two people do — twins, say — the kiosk says Please see reception; it never offers a choice of names. Appointments at your other sites, on other days, or managed in a practice management system are never found.

After each patient, and after a minute without a touch, the kiosk starts again and forgets everything it was shown.

Arrivals in the diary

A kiosk check-in is an ordinary arrival: the card moves to Arrived with its time, and the visit's history says Checked in at the kiosk: Reception iPad. If it was the wrong patient, use Undo arrival.

Too many misses

To stop someone guessing their way through the day's patients, a kiosk allows about ten lookups that find nobody, then one more every two minutes. Past that it says Please see reception until it recovers. Patients who are found don't count.