Improving Patient Care and Communication with Hospital Digital Signage

Hospitals experience several challenges with patient care and communication, such as spending resources trying to run room to room to provide patients with information about a new condition or managing the flow of visitors. 

Digital signage for hospitals offers a tool to address these challenges and improve the overall healthcare experience. This article will review how hospital digital signage can be used to improve patient care and communication. 

Enhancing Patient Communication

Have you ever gotten lost in a hospital or turned around when trying to visit the right room? As recent data reveals, you are not alone. Even junior doctors have reported that they get lost when trying to respond to urgent crash calls and are unsure of how to get around the hospital.

• 30% of first-time visitors to hospitals get lost trying to navigate.
• 25% of staff have problems finding critical facilities within their own hospitals.

Poor communication and navigation can have several negative impacts on patients and visitors alike. It can lead to:

1. Acute stress
2. Higher blood pressure
3. Physical aggression 
4. Fatigue 

Visitors who have limited English arrive to see a grandparent in the hospital but can't effectively communicate who they are trying to visit.

Elderly or sick individuals who are trying to find the right room and realize they are on the wrong floor or the wrong part of the hospital might end up late for critical appointments because they have to take breaks before they can turn around and go the right way.

Outpatient clinics can be difficult to find, leaving patients aggressive when they finally reach the office, fatigued, and annoyed that they spent several minutes lost on foot or in a parking lot. 

Specialists or visitors who arrive for a consultation or surgery end up late as well because they get turned around in the hospital.

And this problem is costly. Hospitals spend over $200,000 every year trying to alleviate these problems. Digital signage for hospitals can reduce these costs and the cost of things like late or missed appointments as well as high turnover because of aggression from patients.

One of the simplest and most effective ways for hospitals to capitalize on digital signage is to use wayfinding stations and directories so that the high-traffic lobbies or main hallways in a building can offer directories where they search for a doctor or a clinic by name and then a link to an interactive map that has exact details for getting to that office. You might even integrate QR codes or have Wi-Fi triangulation that enables patients to check in at the time they reach a wayfinding station and then follow real-time navigation to the office.

Tip: Consider who you need to accommodate the most with your digital signage and tailor the approach to include things like information for seniors, such as preventative tests that they should schedule or bilingual posts in the most common languages in your region.

Personalizing Patient Experiences

Recent articles have noted that open dialogue between patients and their families, as well as medical professionals, can help:

• Reduce errors
• Alleviate long-term emotional impacts
• Provide fresh insight
• Change perspectives 

With hospital digital signage, you can bridge communication gaps between patients and their doctors by enhancing engagement and education.

Recent work has revealed that negative news posts can increase catastrophization and anxiety in patients and their families. Those who are sitting in a lobby or a hospital room are already in a heightened state of concern so digital signage solutions for hospitals can curate patient information and positive, proactive content to help alleviate these concerns and quickly provide necessary information to patients with things like instructions or when to schedule regular appointments for certain health conditions. 

This makes better use of time for doctors, nurses, and other staff as well who no longer have to run from one room to the next.

This type of personalization might include different educational offices on each floor or each wing where patients can utilize an interactive digital screen to learn more about their condition, view treatment schedules, and confirm upcoming doctor visits.

Tangentially individual offices for specific practices might include interactive content through digital signage that lists related potential treatments or recommendations from a doctor after a diagnosis and allows patients the opportunity to look at on-site staff members compared to other in-network options within the local area to book appointments.

Beyond the patient experience, visitors need to be considered, too. To that end, entertainment options can be used for both patients and visitors, providing fun educational content or access to streaming services through digital signs. 

Managing Visitor and Patient Flow

Clinics and offices can manage the flow of patients who would otherwise queue behind one or two windows by installing digital signage throughout the perimeter of an office with features like:

• Patient check-in
• Insurance and ID confirmation
• Notes on symptoms or changes since the last visit

With this, patients can check in digitally and return to the waiting room until they are called. The amount of time spent by nurses and other administrators checking insurance information or investigating current symptoms can be reduced as well with interactive hospital digital signage, thus reducing the time and money offices have to spend managing each patient. Wait times can be reduced as a result too, improving patient experiences, especially when the waiting room has other personalized content like entertainment options. 

Conclusion

Digital signage solutions for hospitals come with many benefits. Healthcare administrators should consider the strategic implications of digital signage to improve hospital operations and patient care. With the right implementation policy, digital signage for hospitals can manage patient flow and check-in processes, offer personalized entertainment for those in waiting rooms, and enhance patient communication.

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