Vita-Stat 8000-C Blood Pressure Kiosk

For many years, as strange as it may sound, I have been somewhat fascinated with the automated blood pressure testing kiosks found in pharmacies – particularly the old Vita-Stat machines from the 1980s and 1990s. I guess part of it is nostalgia for my childhood when I would sometimes test my blood pressure on such machines, and part of it is an interest in the designs of such contraptions  – considering that the older Vita-Stat kiosks tended to be larger and had more buttons. Having said that, there has been one blood pressure kiosk with which I have been fascinated, and I think that it COULD possibly be a Vita-Stat 8000-C.

I saved the above picture of a blood pressure kiosk back in early 2007, which came from a pharmacy’s website. This kiosk is similar to the Vita-Stat 9000AT kiosks that I found in places like Wal-Mart and Eckerd as recently as the mid-2000s. Nowadays, they seem to be hard to find, but in any case, I have found them to be more fascinating than the newer Vita-Stat 90550 (even those are becoming less common – given that many pharmacies are now using newer healthcare kiosks that check weight, eyesight, and so on).

Anyway, I have found the 9000AT kiosks to be fairly interesting – given that they have more buttons and were larger than the 90550 kiosks. However, I have liked the pictured kiosk even more since it looks more retro and more complex. The 9000AT kiosks generally have three plastic red and white buttons, but it appears that the kiosk in the picture has metal green, white, and red buttons with silver rings around them. It also appears to have what could be a manual emergency cuff release switch, which is a feature that has been absent on newer blood pressure kiosks (including even the slightly newer 9000AT). That in particular is what has fascinated me since I thought that some blood pressure kiosks had those, but since I started paying closer attention to blood pressure kiosks in the mid-2000s, I have yet to come across such a kiosk – or find many pictures of such kiosks online.

This kiosk otherwise seems similar to the 9000AT except for the shinier buttons and the manual emergency cuff release switch. Regardless, I have wanted to find more pictures of similar kiosks but have been unable to do so.

At some point several years ago, in researching information about Vita-Stat kiosks online, I learned that there was apparently a model called the Vita-Stat 8000-C that apparently was released in the early 1980s. I have looked for information on the Vita-Stat 8000-C online multiple times but have not been able to find any pictures of it. However, the kiosk in the picture seems like it might have come from the early 1980s, and I have not been able to find a picture specifically identifying a kiosk as an 8000-C, so it is entirely possible that the picture that I found in 2007 could be one of the Vita-Stat 8000-C.