Dental Practices
Yes: Visitor Assistant is a tablet by your door where patients sign themselves in by answering a few short questions you write, and the person they came to see is told by email, a text message or a Teams channel. A Reception page shows your desk who is in the building now. It does not connect to your practice-management software, so marking the appointment as arrived stays with your staff.
It is ten to ten. Whoever is on your front desk has a parent on the phone moving two children's cleanings, a debit card in the terminal for the patient who has just come out, and that patient's next recall half booked on the screen. The door opens, and the person who walks in does the obvious thing: stands at the counter, waits for a gap, and says their name. Down the corridor your hygienist has turned the room over and is wondering whether the quarter-to-ten is running late or has been sitting in the waiting room since twenty to. Nobody is doing anything wrong. Three jobs have landed on one desk at once, and the arrival is the one that waits, which is why you are now looking at check-in kiosks.
They touch the screen, answer a few short questions one at a time, and are given a badge number at the end. There is nothing to download, no account to make and no password to remember, and the confirmation screen does not show their name. The questions are yours: add, reword, reorder or retire any of them, and choose whether each one takes free text, an email address, a phone number or a pick from a list. A dental front desk might need only three — a first name and last initial, who the patient is seeing today, and whether this is their first visit with you. Those are examples of what a practice could write, not a form that comes fixed.
The person the patient picks from the list is told, by email, a text message or a Teams channel. Choose the one your clinicians will actually see between patients, because a phone left in a locker tells nobody anything until lunch. Someone who comes in twice a year may not remember who does their cleaning, so the list of people can end with "I'm not sure — I need help" rather than leaving them to guess. That option needs your opening hours set, because tapping it promises that somebody is at the desk.
Yes. Reception shows who is in the building now, so between a call and a payment the person on the desk can glance across and see who has signed in, instead of finding out when somebody at the counter clears their throat. There is also a roll-call page listing every visitor and member of staff inside, for an evacuation, and it can be printed. Staff sign themselves in and out by scanning a poster with their own phones, with no app and no password, so the assistant who starts at half past seven is on that list without queueing at the patients' tablet.
No, and it is better to know that now than after the stand is on your counter. Visitor Assistant is not connected to your practice-management software. It cannot read the schedule, the charts or the coverage held in that software, and it cannot change an appointment's status there. The book stays where it is, and a person still marks the arrival in it. What the tablet takes off the desk is the moment of being told; it does not replace the record your practice already keeps.
We would not, although your College's guidelines leave room for a written one. RCDSO's Guidelines on Dental Recordkeeping say a patient's medical information should be reviewed and updated regularly, either by having the patient review what was recorded before or by asking specific questions, and that either way the results of the inquiry must be clearly documented. They suggest questions such as whether there has been any change in health or in medications, and they say a dentist may choose to have the patient complete an abbreviated recall history questionnaire. They also call a medical history questionnaire only a starting point, which the treating dentist must review and interpret. Our reason for leaving it off the tablet is the tablet, not the College: an answer typed in the waiting room is not in the chart, because the tablet is not connected to it, and whatever is on the screen while a patient types can be read by whoever is standing behind them. You can write any question you like; we would ask the health update where the answer can be reviewed and charted straight away.
Not entirely, wherever it is asked. Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act counts as personal health information any identifying information about an individual, spoken or recorded, that relates to the providing of health care to them, including the identification of a person as a provider of health care to them. Our reading, not a regulator's: a patient's name beside the hygienist they chose is that kind of information. RCDSO's recordkeeping guidelines describe the Act as setting out obligations for health information custodians, including dentists, and section 12 requires a custodian to take steps that are reasonable in the circumstances to protect that information against theft, loss and unauthorized use or disclosure. Said aloud at the counter it can be heard by the room, and typed on the tablet it can be read over a shoulder, so neither keeps it between two people. Ask for as little as the desk needs. Photo capture, the ID check and spoken questions stay off unless you switch them on.
Yes, in the accessibility standards, and it is short. The Integrated Accessibility Standards regulation applies to anyone providing goods, services or facilities to the public with at least one employee in Ontario, and section 6(2) says that small and large organizations "shall have regard to the accessibility for persons with disabilities when designing, procuring or acquiring self-service kiosks". A kiosk, in that section, is an interactive electronic terminal intended for public use that allows users to access one or more services or products. We read a check-in tablet in a dental waiting room as one of those; that is our reading, not a ruling. The section names no feature a small practice must have, and we do not claim the tablet satisfies it simply by being there. The decisions that bear on it are yours: where the stand goes and at what height, how few questions you ask, whether spoken questions are on, and keeping the counter open to anyone who would rather tell a person. The same regulation's customer service standard asks providers to use reasonable efforts to keep their policies consistent with principles that include dignity, independence, integration and equal opportunity.
That is your choice: keep it, clear it after a set number of days, or clear it as soon as the visit is over. Before you pick the shortest, read two things from RCDSO. Its recordkeeping guidelines define a record as any item of information, in any form, created or received by a dental office and maintained to provide care to patients and conduct business. Its recordkeeping FAQ says clinical and financial patient records must be kept for at least ten years after the last entry, and that the same retention period applies to appointment books and other office records, giving a sterilization log and a drug register as examples. Whether a check-in log is one of those is a judgment for you to make and be able to defend, and it is not one we can make on your behalf. Your appointment book is unaffected either way, because the tablet does not touch it. Where what patients type is kept, and which providers handle it, is set out on our privacy page.
An illustration only: the practice, its staff and its patients are all invented. Cedar Row Dental has two dentists, two hygienists and one person on the front desk, in a plaza unit with eight chairs in the waiting room. Before the tablet went on its stand by the door, the practice wrote three questions: first name and last initial; who are you seeing today, as a list of the four clinicians ending with "I'm not sure — I need help"; and whether this is a first visit. Someone suggested a fourth, about changes to health or medications, and it was left off, because that question is asked and charted at the chair. Photo capture, ID check and spoken questions stayed off. On a Thursday morning Dana is taking a payment while a parent on the line rearranges two cleanings. Kwame comes in for his quarter-to-ten, types his first name and last initial, picks Lena from the list and gets a badge number on a screen that shows no name. Lena is told in the Teams channel the hygiene team keeps open on the sterilisation-room computer, and walks out to the waiting room for him. Dana sees Kwame on the reception screen, finishes the call and the payment, and marks him arrived in the practice software herself, since the tablet does not touch the book. A few minutes later a patient who cannot remember who does her cleaning taps "I'm not sure — I need help"; Dana sees her on the reception screen and goes over, because that option promises someone is at the desk. The practice keeps what patients type, having decided to treat the log as an office record; another practice might reason differently and choose a number of days.
No. They touch the screen and answer the questions on it, and that is all. Nothing is installed on their phone, and there is no login for a patient who comes twice a year to forget.
No. It takes one job off the desk, which is being told that somebody has arrived. The phone, the payment, the recall booking and the questions about coverage stay with a person, and the tablet does not book the next visit or look at anyone's plan. If your desk is sometimes empty, remember that "I'm not sure — I need help" promises a patient that someone is there. Answering the phone when nobody can is a separate assistant, Voice Assistant.
You could write a question asking for it, but we would keep coverage off the lobby screen. PHIPA's definition of personal health information also covers identifying information relating to eligibility for coverage for health care, the tablet passes nothing to your practice software, and photo capture and the ID check are both off unless you turn them on. A change of insurer is better taken at the counter, by whoever will enter it in your own records.
The tablet itself works the same way wherever you are. The rules quoted on this page are Ontario's — PHIPA, the Integrated Accessibility Standards and RCDSO's guidelines — and outside Ontario a different privacy law and a different dental regulator apply, so read yours before you choose what to ask and how long to keep it.
Setting this up is our work, not a form you fill in. We go through your wording with you, and you can change any of it afterwards.
Digital Front Desk