7 Questions to Ask When Buying Digital Signage for your Hospital

Automated tools like digital signage allow hospitals to better communicate with visitors, patients, and staff in their facilities. Over the last year, the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated the need for tech-enabled communication strategies. So, if your hospital is looking to launch digital signage in 2021, it’s vital that you choose the best solution for your specific needs.

How do you select the ideal digital signage vendor? Here’s what you need to know.

WHY DIGITAL SIGNAGE?

Communication between healthcare providers, patients, and their families is critically important to instilling confidence and trust in your institution. As Dr. Santosh Honavar writes, “If trust is the defining element of the patient-physician relationship, communication is the means to engender trust.” Today, hospitals must go even further to allay fears, correct misconceptions, and dispel common concerns via a steady flow of information.

Digital signage affords hospitals with a streamlined and seamless way to communicate with visitors and staff alike, ensuring that both parties have instant access to all of the most pertinent details about their hospital visit. In fact, digital signage can improve the hospital experience in multiple ways, including:

• Improved wayfinding – Navigation via digital signage helps alleviate the frustration and confusion of trying to get around a busy hospital. As studies have shown, “Improved patient [and visitor] travel time correlates to reduce idled nursing time, with cost savings accrued to the organization.”
• Better Internal communication – When used internally, digital signage can provide important information about personnel, policy changes, or operational announcements. This empowers your staff to operate more confidently and efficiently.
• Less perceived wait time – Digital signage in waiting rooms can reduce perceived wait time by as much as 35%.
• Promotions of hospital events and services – Increase revenue and usage of hospital services via promotions. As Becker’s Hospital Review notes, “Digital signage can be deployed to promote specials and promotions, thus increasing sales and profitability tied to concession and hard good sales.”
• Improved education and safety – Safety videos, static messages, and emergency information can quickly be relayed across the entire hospital or sent to specific units.

Whether it’s used to drive engagement, increase safety, improve the hospital experience, or augment staff efficiency, digital signage is a multipurpose technology that savvy healthcare providers are leveraging to create a significant competitive advantage for their hospital.

SEVEN QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR DIGITAL SIGNAGE VENDOR

Before investing in your hospital’s digital signage platform, it’s important to do your research and ask the right questions. The digital signage needs of a retailer or conference center are much different than those of a busy hospital campus. Be sure you partner with a company that understands and specializes in the hospital market, and can meet your hospital’s specific needs. Here are seven questions to help you make the best digital signage choice for your hospital.

1. How easy is it to use? – The vast majority of employees who will be tasked with content management will not be from the IT department. Therefore, they need a product that’s intuitive and easy to use. The last thing you want is to create another pain point by adopting a clunky system weighed down by an overabundance of bells and whistles. Instead, look for a product that’s simple to learn, efficient, and allows you to schedule messaging ahead of time.
2. Is it cloud-based? – Digital signage has been around for a while. As a result, there are still many vendors within the marketplace who require a native application or a TV box to be installed in order to run it. These days, the most secure, cost-effective, and convenient option is via a cloud-based service.
3. Can the hospital leverage existing content? – In all likelihood, your hospital has already invested (and will continue to do so) in a wide assortment of content creation, including ad campaigns, fundraising initiatives, HR videos for employees, patient education videos, and so on. Your digital signage solution should enable seamless uploading of content you have previously developed. This ensures that you are able to maximize and repurpose your content investment.
4. Is it scalable? – Unlike many other businesses that use digital signage for a singular purpose, hospitals have many potential use cases. When utilized correctly, it can be just as beneficial for staff as for visitors. Because of this, scalability is key. Your solution should be able to empower every department and facet of your organization.
5. Can multiple departments manage it? – Similarly, because it has many use cases, your digital signage solution should allow multiple departments and staff members to have admin rights necessary to publish content.
6. Will we need to install additional equipment to run it? – Ideally, your solution should require zero additional hardware to get up and running.
7. Is the solution hospital-specific? – Your product should be one that’s not built for a variety of end-users, rather, it should be geared specifically for your hospital and its needs.

THE SENTRICS SOLUTION

Digital signage is one of the easiest ways you can instantly improve communication in your hospital. By investing in the right solution—one that’s cloud-based, easy-to-use, and built to address your exact needs—you can improve the delivery of care while increasing staff and patient engagement.

Looking for digital signage built specifically for hospitals?

Contact us for a demo of our easy to use, scalable, and secure E3 digital signage.

Sources:

1. NCBI. Patient-physician relationship – Communication is the key. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6213668/
2. NIH. Enhancing Patients’ Wayfinding and Visitation Experience Improves Quality of Care. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32113796/
3. Becker’s Hospital Review. 8 Ways Hospital Use Digital Signage to Improve Care, Patient Satisfaction. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/news-analysis/8-ways-hospital-use-digital-signage-to-improve-care-patient-satisfaction.html