But a new pilot program in Canberra is hoping to change that for patients by letting them use their wait to fill in a report card about their health and free up time with their doctor.

Patients will be able to provide personal information, such as their height, weight and lifestyle risk behaviours, such as smoking, drinking and exercise levels, with the information generated into a report card that they can then discuss with their doctor.

The University of Canberra-designed automated "pod" project is being trialled at the Ochre Health Medical Centre at UC's Health Hub.

UC Health Research Institute director Professor Rachel Davey described the research project as a "patient empowerment pod".

"Most people wait 10-15 minutes for GP appointments, but while they're waiting, they can go and use this pod which is basically a facility to answer a number of questions around your lifestyle behaviours, your physical activity, your alcohol intake, your diabetes risk for example," she said.

"By answering a few questions, which takes under four minutes while you wait in this pod ... you can get a little report card which tells you and flags perhaps potential issues or where you're high risk.

"It helps you to perhaps raise any issues you might not otherwise raise, it might help a GP get better data or a picture of your overall health."

University of Canberra adjunct associate professor and lead GP at Ochre Health Paresh Dawda said an automated system of this kind would assist doctors in gathering relevant information about their patients and free up time during the consultation process.

A recent Canberra study found GP clinic databases were largely incomplete and had missing patient information, he said.

"We hope that this innovative project will help improve the quality of clinical data and empower patients to ask questions about their own health," he said.

Professor Davey was hopeful the pilot program would have benefits for patients and doctors.

"It's really helping to empower the patient to get them engaged in their health – they might not realise they're at risk from some of the chronic diseases," she said.

"For doctors, it can be a busy practice and they don't always ask people about their dietary habits for example, they don't always ask people about certain risk behaviours such as how much alcohol they drink, they don't routinely weigh and measure people's height and BMI so it helps generate that data for them."

The research has been funded with $59,800 through the HCF Research Foundation and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.