Medical utilization of kiosks in the delivery of patient education: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND The utilization of kiosks has previously been shown to be effective for collecting information, delivering educational modules, and providing access to health information. We discuss a review of current literature for the utilization of kiosks for the delivery of patient education. METHODS The criteria for inclusion in this literature review were: (1) study discusses the utilization of kiosks for patient health education; (2) study discusses the use of touch screens for patient health information; (3) published in English. Our review includes searches via MEDLINE databases and Google Scholar for the years 1996-2014. RESULTS Overall, 167 articles were screened for final eligibility, and after discarding duplicates and non-eligible studies with abstract. Full-text review of 28 articles was included in the final analysis. CONCLUSION The review of available literature demonstrates the effectiveness of touch screen kiosks to educate patients and to improve healthcare, both at a performance and cost advantage over other modes of patient education.