What are the benefits of digital signage in healthcare?

Before we delve into the benefits of digital signage in healthcare, spare yourself a few minutes to reflect on your existing healthcare practice. What do you see?

Do you see a modern, svelte office that reflects your facility’s commitment to serving your patients by staying abreast of the latest trends and technologies in your industry?

Or, do you see an outworn establishment clinging to the same old-school approach to interacting and communicating with patients, a drab waiting area, and exam rooms that haven’t been upgraded in years?

If you’ve got the former, kudos! You’re keeping up with the changing times. You are giving your patients what they want: a healthcare experience that makes their day at the hospital less stressful.

If you have the latter, it’s about time to try something different. It’s time to go digital.

It’s time for the healthcare industry to embrace digital signage

Digital signage is a powerful visual communication tool for businesses to engage their audience. With bright screens and colorful, dynamic content, digital signage can grab the viewer’s attention quicker and easier than any other form of media.

While other industries are adopting digital signage to engage their on-premise audience, healthcare is also reaping the benefits of digital signage. Considering the bustling situation in larger hospitals where patients, visitors, nurses, doctors, and support staff are involved, digital signage contributes to an impeccable communication mechanism.

Smaller clinics and medical centers are also finding this technology instrumental in keeping their patients engaged, building a brand, and providing healthcare information.

In this blog, we have explained are the top 15 benefits of healthcare digital signage that would drive hospitals, multi-specialty clinics, and other medical centers to upgrade their premises digitally.

1. First things first, digital signage enhances the hospital experience

Hospital environments often get depressing. In fact, ‘Nosocomephobia’ is an actual medical phobia that can be defined as the intense fear of hospitals. Besides, doctors and nurses are often stressed over tragic incidents or due to extremely tight schedules.

Hospitals can use digital signage screens or 4K video walls to play high-definition immersive videos of serenity or ASMR sounds in silent rooms. This can benefit both the hospital patients and the staff; it reduces their stress and contributes to the healthcare facility’s overall ambiance.

2. It is easier to showcase hospital infrastructure & facilities

With digital signage, it is straightforward to market your offerings. The hospital authorities can leverage digital screens to inform patients about healthcare services like non-invasive surgery, transplants, cancer care, or spine surgery.

3. Not just the doctors list, but digital screens can show complete doctors profiles

Doctors and nurses are the foundation of any hospital or clinic. With hospital screens, it is much convenient to display complete doctor & surgeon profiles: the doctors' headshots, contact numbers, qualifications, specialty, experience, and achievements. Playing their video interviews on screen is another way of cementing trust between patients and healthcare providers. Also, with healthcare digital signage software, this information can be updated in just a few seconds.

4. There is greater scope to connect with patients & doctors at an emotional level

One of the most positive use cases of hospital digital signage is perhaps the potential to make an emotional impact on patients suffering from critical illness. Hospital screens can show patient success stories and inspirational videos, motivating people with depression or those undergoing long-term treatments like chemotherapy.

At the same time, hospital screens can also champion doctors when they succeed in critical, life-risking surgeries or congratulate patients who overcome any medical challenge.

5. Digital signage can effectively educate and aware visitors

Digital signage can serve as a very effective tool for informing patients and on-premise visitors about health-related information and tips to avoid certain medical complications or diseases.

For example, in the current situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare centers can display real-time Covid updates directly from the WHO website. Besides engaging patients and visitors, showing relevant content can also function as a passive health awareness campaign.

6. Better visibility means better branding

Digital signage offers a perfect solution for on-premise branding. Clinics can launch digital posters on big LED displays. Hospitals can showcase their charitable contributions towards the community, specialization, social media feeds, special drives, events organized, rewards, and recognitions to increase their brand awareness.

7. Healthcare digital signage can also generate revenue

Some of the hospital chains and clinics have leveraged digital signage to generate substantial ad revenue by allowing advertisements on their digital displays in waiting areas. Pharma companies, medical equipment manufacturers, health drinks, fitness centers, and hyper-local service providers are the most interested advertisers who would like to reach out to hospital patients.

8. Easy to carry out multiple marketing campaigns

Healthcare centers can post offers on health check-ups, cosmetic surgeries, and geriatric screening. This can attract many potential eyeballs.

9. With screens, it is easier to take the focus off of the wait

It’s a well-established fact that occupied time is deemed shorter than unoccupied time. A twenty-minute wait can seem like ten minutes when patients look at engaging content tailored to their preferences and needs.

We frequently see this engagement tactic in retail industries. But, more than any other industry, healthcare organizations face the maximum need to reduce perceived wait time and patient frustration.

Showing valuable content like medical news, yoga charts and videos, live weather updates, or world news can provide the necessary digital infotainment in patient waiting rooms.

10. Way-finding becomes easier

Assisting a patient to find their way around a vast healthcare facility can get complicated, frustrating, and tedious. In such cases, the benefit of a way-finding display is that it offers relevant information to steer people throughout a physical environment.

Patients and guests will be able to commute to their destination faster and more accurately if you provide a complete map of the premise coupled with physician directories and extension dials.

11. Digital signage system can streamline Emergency Room triage

Digital signage screens in emergency wards can serve as electronic assistants and channel information between surgeons and EMTs. Triage involves sorting victims of medical emergencies based on their level of injury. In such cases, large screens can display patient injury levels, blood groups, surgical teams assigned to each patient, surgery rooms, and treatment queues.

12. Hospitals can expedite the diagnosing process

One of the most significant plus points of digital signage in hospitals is its potential to speed up diagnostics. Doctors and physicians can analyze more data at once with an HD screen, which displays everything from store-and-forward telemedicine to electronic health records (EHRs) at one quick glimpse. Likewise, they can better interpret X-rays, CT scans, and a slew of other medical images and data with ease, thanks to the higher resolution.

By eliminating the need to navigate between rooms and records, digital signage helps doctors and healthcare professionals to diagnose faster.

13. Internal communication gets simplified

There’s no doubt that digital signage can strengthen workplace communication. Screens installed in break rooms can stream internal communication channels to keep the hospital staff updated on every new development. These real-time updates can be quickly broadcast on the healthcare digital signage with applications like Slack or Google Sheets and Pickcel Bulletin Board App.

Changes in shifts, emergency duty calls, task reminders, hygiene tips & guidelines- all information can be effectively disseminated.

14. It is 5X easier to manage patients appointments and queues

Walking into a hospital with a digital display informing wait time already ameliorates the stress of not knowing how long it will take to get an appointment. It also frees up areas as the patients can wait in nearby restaurants or hospital cafeterias up until minutes before their call. Compared to staring at the boring wall chart for hours at a stretch, this is a far more pleasant experience.

Pickcel’s QR-based queue management solution allows patients to track their queue tickets on mobile phones & tablets.

15. A screen software is the fastest way to display emergency alerts

A digital signage software can connect the entire facility. Messages can be synchronized across all displays, so the same information is displayed on all screens. In an emergency, such as a security breach, gas leak, health emergency, or fire, digital signage will be incredibly beneficial.

Taking All Into Account

Hospitals and clinics operate on tight schedules and often under extreme stress. In such a fast-paced vertical, time can cost lives. There is no scope to waste time, and therefore, the more integrations with digital technology, the higher are the benefits.

Pickcel’s digital signage solution can help your hospitals and clinics enjoy all the benefits that we have listed down in this blog. Partner up with Pickcel to get your clinic the maximum coverage possible.