Smart tool aids in triage of emergency room patients

Do patient-centered (or "centred" as they spell it in Canada) information systems assist in the triage of Emergency Room patients? The Scarborough Hospital, Canada's largest urban community hospital, and Canada Health Infoway have launched such a new system:

The user-friendly kiosks are available in English, but will also feature interfaces in seven different languages including English, French, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Tamil, Punjabi, Farsi, Hindi and Urdu. Patients are asked a number of questions in their native language and can choose answers from a comprehensive list. The system then translates the information into English for use by the care providers. It is estimated that approximately half of the patients at the Scarborough Hospital speak English as a second language.

It will be interesting to see how successful this system will be in the ER setting. I would love to see such a system utilized for office visits. Click here to read the news article.