Providing quality services in healthcare facilities involves effective healthcare services. However, the overall patient experience also involves delivering timely communication, reasonable updates, and unimpeded navigation within the healthcare environment. Recently, the use of digital signage has proven to be one of the most effective means of improving patient experience. Digital signage improves the patient experience by delivering information in real-time, improving the atmosphere, and making navigation through the healthcare environment easier.
In this piece, we examine the ways digital signage in improving the healthcare environment and patient experience. Also, how businesses in this industry, including manufacturers of electronic shelf labels, are fueling this tech advancement. There are far-reaching and extensive benefits of digital signage within the healthcare industry that range from communication to better wayfinding.
Table of Contents
Enhancing Communication and Information Flow
Patient satisfaction is heavily dependent on effective communication. Inside hospitals, patients are frequently informed about appointments and treatments. Nobody is there to provide vital updates. Hospital companions are sometimes left in the dark about the status of their loved one’s situation. Digital signage is really about the only means a hospital can keep patients and visitors on site informed, especially in real-time.
Digital signage can display updates on waiting times, emergency alerts, and other real-time announcements. Information concerning the hospital’s operations is also relatable. Health-related content, especially preventive care tips, wellness advice, and reminders for follow-up appointments, can be saved on the signage to display. These pointers shift a lot of the uncertainty and stress for patients.
More so, the patient’s experience flows in the same positive direction. They can check in, register, or schedule appointments right on the signage. This also helps to streamline some administrative processes.
Improving Hospital Navigation with Wayfinding Systems
Within medicine, hospitals are some of the most digitally advanced institutions and for good reason. Patient care is preceded with a lot of information gathering and administration. Consider the most basic patient information. It is collected by the nurse and makes its way to a doctor hundreds of pages and a couple of floors apart, sometimes. Most hospitals make patients fill information forms. They must be organized. Streamlining the way information is dispersed and collected is and should be a priority. That is information for the patient.
Patients must also be organized for care to be administered. That patient information and their specific administrative flows must intersect. The most basic administrative functions for patient care must provide real-time updates about a patients’ status to the responsible doctor. That is one way hospitals can assist patients indirectly by way of communication.
Wayfinding digital signage is installed in hospitals on interactive displays and smaller screens. These digital signs show maps and directions and provide real-time updates. This ensures patients can find the correct department, room, and facility in a confusing hospital setting. In a time-critical situation like going to an emergency room, patients are less anxious and frustrated.
Other hospitals use indoor navigation apps. These include Bluetooth and other location tech. These apps can connect to digital signage and provide directions from a specific location to a desired one. This real-time interactive navigation geared to the hospital’s specific needs is ideal for people who are less mobile, are ill, and require assistance to navigate, or are unfamiliar with the hospital’s layout.
Adding to the Comfort of the Patient with Digital Signage
Digital signage can enhance the patient experience in a hospital and create a comfortable and calming environment. For patients waiting a long time in emergency rooms and clinics, content displayed on digital screens can reduce their anxiety and increase their comfort.
Hospitals can reduce patient anxiety and serve more engaged and supported patients during their visit with soothing imagery and relaxing content on digital displays. Videos and images can be tailored to center on the relaxation techniques being used and even helpful reminders of the techniques to be practiced during patient stay.
The displays can be personalized to enhance the patient experience. For example, hospitals can display patient names, welcome messages, and specific info pertaining to their diagnosis. Customization of messages can make the patient feel that the hospital is going the extra mile.
Streamlining Operations and Reducing Wait Times
Patient wait times will always be part of the experience in hospitals, and managing this will greatly improve the experience of patients. The feeling of waiting can be frustrating, and patients will need to be managed and their expectations will need to be set in digital format to reduce their frustration, even if the care is good. Digital signage can help improve the flow and communication of care and help prioritize the flow of patients in the system.
Digital signs display expected wait times for different departments, helping patients and families understand wait times. These signs can display updated real-time information, allowing patients to plan their time and alleviate the feelings of waiting. Furthermore, real-time patient queue updates can prevent bottlenecks and guide patients to less congested areas, helping to optimize the hospital’s operational effectiveness.
Some healthcare facilities have started using electronic shelf labels manufacturers to enhance the efficiency of certain business administrative tasks, such as managing patient charts and tracking medications. Having ESLs in a hospital provides more accurate and time-sensitive tracking of patient information which aids in the reduction of human error and the effective allocation of hospital resources.
Engaging in Health Education and Advocacy
Hospitals can use digital signage to expand patient education as well. For instance, healthcare organizations can use digital signs to display information on various medical conditions, treatment options, preventive measures and overall health tips.
Tailored to each patient’s needs, this can be informative, interactive, and dynamic. For instance, digital signage can show messages about health concerns such as smoking, exercise, and weight, or signs about mental health during wait times. Digital screens can explain certain medical processes, potentially calming patient anxiety and helping them understand the value and purpose of their treatment.
Digital signage is capable of distributing information about the provided services, health fairs, and vaccination clinics, as well as explaining other wellness programs. This encourages the patient population to be more engaged and educated, which can lead to improved health outcomes.
Shaping Hospital Brand and Reputation
Health institutions and hospital networks now compete for clients and healthcare professionals, and as such, they pay more attention to their brand image. Digital presence can be a means of reinforcing a hospital’s brand image. Digital signage can communicate a hospital’s mission and vision statement as well as its value by displaying the hospital’s accomplishments in a manner that is digestible to the audiences, both patients and visitors.
Hospitals can digitally display patient testimonies, staff awards, and the history of the institution, the services offered, and the hospital’s values, commitment to care, and innovation. Such information strengthens the healthcare institution’s public brand and image.
Furthermore, digital signage can display positive messages, such as showcasing successful treatment and life-saving surgeries, on a flexible basis reinforcing the esteem the hospital garners for excellence in caring for patients. Such initiatives also engender confidence in the patients and establish the hospital as a provider of leading healthcare services.
To summarize, digital signage is a critical innovation that most of the time improves a patients’ experience while in a hospital and other healthcare environments. By enabling the flow of real time data, improving hospital way-finding, minimizing the duration of the patients and visitors wait time, and encouraging patients to take a more participatory role in their healthcare, digital signage enhances the efficiency, comfort, and informational content of a healthcare environment.
Healthcare entities that seek to improve operational efficiency can achieve that by working with seasoned manufacturers of electronic shelf labels. The optimal best ESL solution streamlines hospital workflows and offers seamless integration with digital signage to improve the patient experience from multiple dimensions. The evolving nature of digital signage will allow healthcare practitioners to modernize the care they offer and improve patient satisfaction.
