NEONX - innovative technology for patient check-in with anti-fraud facial recognition system

Abstract

Waiting time in emergency rooms and urgent care centers is a critical factor that affects patient safety, comfort, and is one of the main performance indicators of a care unit. Long waiting periods may cause overcrowding in the sector, which in turn triggers problems in the treatment and evolution of patients, decrease of comfort, refusal of new ambulances or patients, and increased stress in the medical and care staff. In Brazil, for example, the wait time in urgent care centers is the most common complaint for 23% of the health insurance customers. Overcrowding on urgent care units is not just a reality of Brazil. Between 2008 and 2015, the number of visits to urgent care units (or walk-in clinics) in the United States increased from 47 to 103 visits for every 1000 people in 2015 (a 119% increase), and the mean time to see a doctor of 58.1 minutes. In Canada, the standby time can be as long as 78 minutes. Several methodologies have been adopted to decrease the time between triage and medical consultation. One example is the Lean Project, which started in 2018 and reduced the wait time from 3 to 1.5 hours in 20 hospitals in Brazil. However, few attempts have been made to decrease the time between the arrival of the patient in the unit and the identification process, which is still done manually and slowly. With the significant advance of walk-in clinics, a trend in both Brazil and the United States, the patient identification time is critical. In some walk-in clinics, even the triage is done on a mobile application where the user answers questions about his symptoms. For these clinics, the time between arrival and patient identification is the main bottleneck. The identification of the patient before a medical consultation is essential to prevent fraud in the use of a health insurance plan. This is the main type of fraud that is performed by patients in hospital settings. Technological and research investments have been made using biometric sensors to reduce such frauds, being fingerprint recognition the most common. However, these advances have further increased the wait time. The NEONX project has been under development since August 2018 at the Israelita Albert Einstein Hospital and the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Lab in Houston, TX, where the company is also incubated. The main goal is to develop the first express check-in solution with facial recognition to reduce the time between the patient's arrival at hospitals and the service opening, avoiding physical contact, paper inconsistencies - that will only be discovered at that time - paper form fillings, fraud, and health insurance eligibility issues. The product is made up of three modules: i) a mobile APP, which customer will use to pre-check in remotely, ii) a web platform, where the hospital sends the invitation for the patient to pre-register after booking an appointment, and iii) the facial recognition kiosk, which can be physical or 100% online, which grants access or initiates service at the reception. After the advance of COVID-19, in mid-2020, during PHASE 1, NEONX expanded as a project and started to serve other markets, today, despite being the world's first specialized in the patients' journey and yet a prototype, it serves clients in multi-sectors such as education, retail and real estate, taking all support and experience the healthcare sector can provide to other markets as a tool for human protection. (AU)