Enhancing the Patient Experience with Hospital Digital Signage
by Scala Team
Enhancing the Patient Experience with Hospital Digital Signage
by Scala Team
Digital communication through interactive hospital displays is one way by which hospitals could change things for their patients. Several studies done by tech firms point out how the use of digital displays, particularly those offering high-resolution visuals and interactive experiences, can make hospital visits or clinical consultations less stressful and even enhance their benefits.
What are the Benefits of Medical Digital Signage Solutions?
Hospital digital signages could offer institutions the following advantages to both patients and staff:
1. A Digital Wayfinder / Healthcare Wayfinding Systems Point You in the Right Direction
Today, the placement of a hospital digital signage allows a more dynamic approach to helping patients find their way through. A Digital Wayfinder can help ease patients with a map, directions for convenience and ease of time. The advantage of Healthcare Wayfinding Systems or interactive hospital displays is that it has area maps or floor plans that offer more accurate directions, and more advanced systems even tell users how far they are from their destination and how long a walk it will take to get there.
2. Personalised and Timely Care for Individual Patients
The use of hospital digital signage, particularly those that can be interactive hospital displays, updated hands-free at regular intervals (or, more importantly, as soon as a drastic change occurs in the patient’s vital signs), enables physicians and other care providers to adjust medication whenever necessary, modify treatment plans, or take drastic life-saving measures as needed. One such example could be in the form of tablets positioned beside a patient’s bed which can be synced with those carried by an attending physician; in this way, doctors get updates regularly and act whenever necessary.
3. Reduced Anxiety Throughout the Waiting Period
Nothing can be more nerve-wracking than the protracted wait in a hospital / clinic waiting room. A hospital digital signage can help decrease the tension in the room. Along with a Queue Management System (QMS) that automatically generates a sequence of numbers showing which patient goes to which diagnostic area, hospitals can also play information reels, light entertainment, or even their own internal marketing material to help visitors relax before their appointments.
4. Real-time Communication
As with item #2, timely information goes a long way in enhancing the patient experience. The placement of interactive hospital displays in high-traffic areas like lobbies, out-patient clinics, cafeterias, and pharmacies is a great way to disseminate public safety advisories or schedules of activities that are open to the public. In the case of cafeterias and pharmacies, these can be used to advise customers as to what products are out of stock, as well as special offers or discounts. A hospital digital signage can also be a life-saving device to disseminate emergency announcements in case of fire or earthquakes.
5. A Boost in Revenue and Investor Relations
Hospital digital signages have a surprising advantage when it comes to boosting revenue streams throughout the institution: they can be used to advertise service offerings that could appeal to the public. At the same time, interactive hospital displays can improve investor and / or donor relations as the hospital may opt to broadcast events involving these people and showing recent achievements on the part of officers and staff. A Healthcare wayfinding system will instantly impress those who walk in as it makes it convenient for them to navigate the large spaces and find their way through the hospital which will promote return visits and boost revenues.
6. A Streamlined Information Delivery System
A major challenge in hospital settings is the amount of information generated and disseminated in a day. For those still following old systems, the amount of paper generated about individual patients is environmentally unsustainable, and the possibility of clerical errors that could jeopardise a patient’s well-being is much higher. A streamlined information delivery system aided by hospital digital signage significantly decreases the amount of paperwork generated, reduces the possibility of clerical error, yet enables hospitals to still comply with regulations on patient confidentiality. Medical digital signage solutions can solve concerns by quickly displaying information, helping in the queuing of patients, show pricing of various diagnosis useful reminders such as hygiene or the required use of masks.
7. Quicker Diagnoses – and Even Quicker Releasing
Displaying diagnostics on interactive hospital displays enables medical professionals to take as close a look as they can at a patient’s X-rays and test results. In turn, this leads to quicker, more accurate diagnoses that can be shown posthaste to patients as an introduction to their treatment plan.
How to Get the Message Across in a Hospital through Medical Digital Signage Solutions
Given these benefits, the next thing hospital administrators need to consider is what form should their hospital digital signage take to convey information effectively and efficiently to stakeholders.
At present, the following options are available to help enhance the patient experience with interactive hospital displays:
● Content Management System (CMS) is an application that can help the hospital system manage its hospital digital signage content seamlessly. A robust CMS allows you to schedule and publish information with a few clicks, plan and preschedule announcements / information, update schedules of doctors’ real time and easily control content for all screens from one place.
● Queue Management System (QMS)can help beat the long queues in the hospital for patients which can reduce their stress and inconvenience. This can contribute to the hospital’s overall customer satisfaction rate by having the ability to assign queue number with a display of the place of the patient in the queue, improve efficiency and service of the hospital, reduce paper use or the need for queue numbers as the hospital can have a ticketless system, and automatic distribution of queue numbers for patients.
● Digital whiteboards allowing medical personnel to collaborate and share relevant information.
● Interactive hospital display kiosks that offer information in several categories, including the means for patients to check in or out of the facility, to set appointments, to give feedback on services or amenities, or even to find their way throughout the hospital or clinic; and
● Self-propelled devices such as robots that can serve as ambulant kiosks.
Medical Digital Signage Solutions changes the game for both hospitals / clinics and their patients. It takes much of the stress and anxiety off from patients prior to (and even after) their appointments, and it streamlines the flow of information from doctors to patients or even from hospital administration to the public.
Whatever medical digital signage solutions a hospital may need, we at Scala offer a wide range of helpful solutions that will make on-site experiences more convenient for their patients, boost institutional revenues through more effective marketing, and improve relations among their stakeholders.
About the Author:
Scala digital signage experts share their experience and thoughts in our blog to provide practical tips and advice for real-world applications. Our team aims to offer interesting content through a variety of formats including long form articles, video logs, interviews and infographics.
