Instead of waiting in those long lines to see an actual person to fill out your paperwork now at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and soon to be installed at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in New Jersey, you out can just fill out your own information via a computer kiosk similar to those you use to apply for jobs in many stores.

Using a touch screen you fill out the usual name, age and other personal information. Then a list of various ailments comes up to choose from and you even get to choose such options as pain, fever and/or chills. They even give you a list of body parts so you can let the kiosk know just what part of your anatomy is causing you distress at that particular time.

Now the lucky or unlucky persons, depending upon your point of view, who are having chest pains, strokes, gunshot, car crash or as reported to the AP "worrisome complaints" they of course will still take priority and will be seen first.

Though I did find this comment very telling:

"Patients don't always know if their symptom is potentially bad or serious," said Dr. Marc Borenstein, chairman and residency program director for the department of emergency medicine at Beth Israel.

Now this kiosk still does not eliminate the wait time, it just distracts you for about 8 or so minutes depending on how long it takes you to input your information and complaint.

Then the information is sent to a nurse via a pop up screen and they will determine who's illness or complaint takes priority to be seen.

"It's helping us find the people that we need to see right now," said Jennifer Hay, unit manager for the ER department.

Then possibly one or two hours later your off to get your vital signs taken by an actual person called a nurse and then in a few more hours you get to see that mysterious person called a doctor who will hopefully know just what ails you within the seconds you actually get to see him/her and your shuffled out the door with medications or prescriptions in hand.

If he does decide you need a test or two then you get to wait at the least 30 minutes to an hour that it takes for test results to come back or wheeled off for x-rays if it is deemed you need them.

Brandie Glover, 27, of Dallas, said she first thought the kiosks at Parkland were "weird." "I thought it was kind of impersonal, but at the same time, it's a quicker process," said Glover, who came to the ER with neck and ear pain. But after waiting for more than three hours without seeing a doctor, Glover decided to leave without getting treated.

I would really hate to see what is a long process if a person who waited three hours and still had not seen a doctor and ended up leaving without being seen thought it was quicker.

So basically what this system does is just take several more jobs (the registration clerks) out of the equation and saves the hospital money to employ and train these people or frees up nurses who in some hospitals do the check-ins.

I did happen to notice there was nothing said about lowering E.R. patient costs, since after all they are now doing their own paperwork or just how much these kiosks cost overall.

What I would suggest for everyone is check to see just what facilities such as walk in 24 hour clinics are available in your area and what types of patients they see before a situation arises, that while may not be life threatening does need to be seen by a doctor and treated in a timely manner, such as those stitches that one child ends up needing and usually crops up in the late hours or in many cases usually on the weekends when your doctors offices are closed.