Healthcare settings – hospitals, doctors, dentists, clinics – are complex places that need simple communication tools. The potential for digital signage to help is huge, from wayfinding, to giving patients information, right through to entertainment. As well as helping patients, it can support medical staff too, by answering questions before they are asked, and improving internal comms. Displays are easy to set up and programme using a digital signage content management system; content can be automated and managed centrally to keep it varied and interesting. Here we look at some of the best use cases for digital signage in healthcare.
Health messages
Use healthcare digital signage to engage patients with information about preventative guidance and healthcare or with advice on how to deal with some medical conditions during epidemic crisis or childhood illnesses, safe handling of medication or hygiene rules. You don’t need to create this content yourself, the government, health charities and your suppliers’ website and YouTube channels will have videos and content that you can run.
Using your own and others’ content helps to keep your medical digital signage varied; patients may be waiting a while and watching the same content over and over is frustrating, especially if they must watch the screen to see when their name will be called. Tailor the content to any special surgeries you run, for example, baby clinics or back surgeries.
Virtual receptionist
Pre-empt questions that patients might have and use digital signage to give essential information about the clinic. For example, when are the extended opening hours, when are the special surgeries, which nearby pharmacies are open for 24 hours? If you are digitising parts of your service, you can communicate this via your digital signage. Let people know how to book appointments online and how to register for digital access to their medical records.
To give some variety you can also add in feeds showing information from external sources, like local weather forecast and news headlines. Is there a café on site? You could advertise the menu and the special offers. You can also give more friendly information about the surgery, for example, have the team raised money for charity, has one of the team had a big work anniversary or has the clinic celebrated a milestone?
Internal communication
Digital signage is not only useful for communicating with patients, it can help with team communication too. A large screen showing essential information that’s automatically updated, for example, details of hospital admissions, can make it easier for medical staff to stay up-to-date and can simplify information in a fast-paced and stressful environment.
Giving updates
Once checked in, but before being called to see the doctor, a patient can feel anxious about their wait and what effect this will have on the rest of their day – whether they will be late back to work or to their childminder, even whether their money will run out in the car park. You can use digital signage to reassure them, to manage their expectations and to give them something useful to watch. You can use screens to tell patients whether a doctor is running on time or late; you can list their place in the queue. With a fleet of screens, you can have one screen per doctor or dentist outside their door, or with one screen, you can roll through each doctor in rotation.
Welcoming patients
Hospitals, clinics and large doctors’ surgeries can be intimating places, especially as you usually only go to them when you are worried about your own health or the health of someone you are visiting. Making it easy for patients to find out where they need to go is essential to reducing stress and keep appointments running smoothly. Digital signage solutions for healthcare can help with wayfinding, with screens welcoming patients where they first arrive - reminding them to use hand sanitiser - and providing a map or arrows to where they need to go. You can place screens strategically at every point where a patient needs to make a choice about their route and in every clinic reception. Screens can be immediately and easily updated as clinics switch over, without needing to print new signs.
Entertainment
It can be difficult to provide content that entertains everyone, and you need to consider tone and appropriateness, but there will be cartoons, quizzes, music videos or even recipe tutorials that you can include in your content schedule to reduce boredom and anxiety.
For more ideas about how digital signage for doctors offices can help communication contact us.
Cenareo is a digital signage solution designed to communicate with an unlimited number of screens in real-time.
