People associate hospitals with some of the most incredible and the most distressing events in their lives. Doctors spend their time saving and improving lives, but they, too, experience burnout and exhaustion, caused by a slew of external factors that the hospital has little control over.
It’s not entirely fair, but your hospital’s image and identity are deeply intertwined with such occurrences and events.
Today, to diminish the negatives and boost the positives of that hospital experience both for patients and for medical staff, hospitals are using technology at every turn.
Digital signage, for example, has become a go-to opportunity for medical facilities to promote positive messages, help patients find their way, and simplify patient-doctor interactions. Here’s how you can leverage digital signage to your advantage even more!
Improve the Waiting Room Experience
Sitting or pacing in the waiting room can be a mixture of excitement and impatience, but it can also involve much more complex emotions. For that very reason, every healthcare facility adds magazines and newspapers to give people something to do while they wait.
Now that times have changed and most people use their phones and spend their time online, you can actually give them an alternative with your digital displays.
Present compelling medical interviews with your former patients or medical experts on important topics such as skin care, nutrition, and wellness.
Offer practical tips and advice together with research and data to support it. Waiting room content can also be of different formats, so you can mix and match between videos, animations, and snippets of written data like fun facts.
Simplify Wayfinding and The Reception
When people come to your hospital anxious and worried, navigation should be the least of their problems. Your hospital might seem like a complex labyrinth to an outsider, but hospital digital signage can help visitors and patients find their way on the premises more easily.
Strategically placed at the entrance and reception, and on every floor, these platforms can provide simple, concise information on where each department is and where their doctor’s office is.
If they should check in on entry, they can do so with the help of the digital panel without waiting for a receptionist to show up. At the same time, they can use signage to explore the hospital map.
Smaller digital screens can point patients in the right direction or alert them when their number is up, so that they can see their doctor. Wayfinding is much easier with digital tools at your disposal.
Inform, Educate, Engage
Hospital corridors are the perfect opportunity to give pacing visitors and patients something to learn, to engage with, and to think about other than the reason for their visit. Panels in hospital corridors can be valuable sources of helpful, educational information and data that puts a problem in perspective – and your hospital can offer tips and advice.
Add to that, you can present promotions and discounts for each week or month, and add call-to-action buttons and links. You can also introduce QR codes for immediate action, and to inspire more people to check out additional services at your hospital.
These digital panels can also be interactive, so you can set up surveys and even fun quizzes for kids to “test” their health knowledge and at the same time provide valuable bite-sized tips for them.
Make Your Doctors’ Lives Easier
Medical professionals continue their education for the rest of their lives. They never really “graduate”, and they constantly need to obtain the latest certification, mentor younger colleagues, train staff, but also consider the latest medical products in the market to upgrade your hospital. All that requires modern presentation equipment.
Digital screens that easily connect to laptops or phones make it easier for your medical staff to present their research, conduct training, and even participate in remote workshops.
When there’s an opportunity to implement a new and better product or service, they can invite salespeople to organize a presentation on the premises, too.
Boost awareness
In addition to helping people directly through a range of medical services, hospitals are also valuable advocates of healthy living, important scientific discoveries, and spreading awareness in general.
As such, your role in the wider society is much greater than that immediate patient-doctor interaction. Digital signage designed for hospitals helps spread those important messages at every turn.
Use your digital screens to showcase videos of best lifestyle practices and different lifestyle advice from your most qualified medical staff. Have designated health awareness zones where you cover important health topics, be it breast cancer prevention, AIDS knowledge, or the relevance of vaccines.
Spread the word on the latest scientific discoveries in the kind of language your audience will understand. These digital tools are by far the best way for your hospital to boost public awareness.
Your hospital will always be a place where people will experience an entire palette of emotions. While you cannot prevent the negative ones from occurring, you can make sure that each patient, visitor, and doctor has the most comfortable, pleasant experience possible, and tech allows you to reach that goal.
Much like the most cutting-edge medical tools make all the difference for your core services, these tech-driven tools enable your hospital to communicate more effectively with everyone.
Use digital signage in your hospitals to elevate the overall experience and to upgrade your professional environment for all those who benefit from your existence.