Hospitals and healthcare facilities rely on clear, accessible communication to improve patient satisfaction and health outcomes and boost the organization’s brand visibility. In fact, about 70% of hospitals now use digital communication systems, highlighting the growing reliance on screens. In the digital era, screens are a highly effective way to convey critical, time-sensitive information.
Hospital digital signage is an effective way to enhance patient, visitor, and staff experiences, with surveys showing that 75% of viewers report higher satisfaction. Hospitals and healthcare facilities can use digital signage displays to streamline operations, foster better connections with patients, and enhance internal communication. Just make sure you choose the right digital display for your hospital.
To dive into more details, we’ve listed 9 effective ways hospital digital signage display can help health organizations achieve their goals.
Top Ways to Use Hospital Digital Signage Solutions
1. Digital Wayfinding Signage
Hospitals are the most complex of building types, as they often comprise several wings offering a wide range of services and functions. According to research, wayfinding interruptions cost hospitals approx. $220,000 annually. Without a coordinated wayfinding system, patients may be late for their appointments, causing prolonged delays in the hospital’s operation.
Digital directories and wayfinding signage can provide customized directions and guide patients and visitors to their destinations effortlessly. By placing it at the entrance of your facility, hospital lobby, and near the elevators, patients and visitors will have easy access to this self-service and be able to navigate around. This way, your staff can be freed up from directing traffic and can focus on their tasks.
2. Digital Welcome Signage
Hospitals typically are not the most relaxing places to visit. It’s common for people to feel uncomfortable and experience anxiety when visiting the hospital, even if they are only there for a regular check-up. To improve the overall visitor and patient experience, it is recommended that hospitals find ways to make visits less intimidating.
Hospital digital signage can help reduce patient stress by setting a positive tone with welcome messages and captivating visuals. In fact, providing real-time information on lobby screens reduced perceived wait times by 35%.
You can also display information such as hours of operation, emergency numbers, and healthy tips to keep your patients and visitors informed and reassured. Share your hospital’s values, showcase your hospital mission and vision, and introduce your talented doctors to further connect with your patients.
To leverage hospital digital signage as a welcome sign is a great way for hospitals to make the visiting experience less stressful. Thus, it becomes easier for their medical professionals and staff to care for, assist, and treat patients.
3. Digital Advertising and Marketing
One of the most common and popular applications of digital signage across industries is advertising. The healthcare industry is no different. According to studies, 52% of patients obtain health information from healthcare digital signage. This proves that digital displays are an effective communication channel for hospitals to deliver their marketing messages.
When placed in a busy area with heavy foot traffic (such as the lobby or main hallway), a digital advertising display will reach a wider audience. It also allows you to show engaging content that significantly increases your campaign’s visibility.
Hospital digital signs can be used to:
- Advertise healthcare products or highlight areas of expertise.
- Promote fundraisers and community events.
- Showcase recent awards or top doctors to build trust and credibility.
Some hospitals generate revenue by renting digital signage space to partners like pharmacies, health insurance providers, and medical device companies. With long average wait times, this can turn screens into a profitable advertising channel.
4. Digital Hospital Waiting Room Signage
Hospital waiting areas are where patients and visitors tend to experience the highest level of anxiety. Hence, drawing attention away from the wait itself is the key to improving hospital visitors’ experiences.
Integrating hospital digital signage displays with your appointment system is an effective way to ease waiting room anxiety and increase visitor satisfaction. The screen can display the estimated wait time and queue status to keep patients informed. While your patients are getting ready for their appointment, you can also show them instructions for their examination procedures or reminders to fill out any required medical forms. This way, your patients will know what to expect and be more likely to stay calm during their wait.
Waiting room digital signage can also be used to deliver educational or entertainment content to keep patients and visitors engaged. Display videos or short clips that promote a healthy lifestyle to encourage your patients and visitors to incorporate healthy habits into their daily lives. Streaming live news, sports games, weather forecasts, or movies is another great way to keep them entertained and reduce their perceived wait time.
5. Patient Check-in Kiosks
Self-service is rapidly gaining popularity. In fact, about 66% of healthcare facilities now use self-check-in kiosks as more people prefer solving issues themselves instead of waiting for human support. By integrating your hospital’s appointment and queue management system with an interactive digital signage kiosk, you can provide patients with easier access to information and encourage them to perform self-check-in.
Moreover, patients are also able to check their doctor’s availability and make appointments accordingly without lining up at the reception desk for assistance. This can reduce your reception staff’s workload, allowing them to manage the queue more efficiently and focus on other important duties, such as assisting patients who need help the most. Patients also benefit from a more personalized experience that will increase their overall satisfaction with hospital digital signage.
6. Digital Donor-Recognition Walls
Creating a donor-recognition wall using hospital digital signage is an excellent way to show appreciation for your hospital’s financial supporters. Such displays can also inspire additional donations by fostering pride and engagement. Display their names and your thankful messages with stunning animations to attract more eyes.
On top of that, you can inspire potential donors to contribute by showcasing the projects or donor programs your hospital is currently running, such as hospital wing expansion, medical equipment upgrades, and community fundraising. Sharing the progress of your projects on digital displays can promote transparency and accountability, allowing your donors to see where their donations will be going.
A large organization like a hospital cannot serve the community efficiently without a team of devoted staff and volunteers. It’s important to show gratitude to your volunteers and highlight their impact.
Digital donor-recognition walls can be used to recognize your volunteers’ contributions by displaying custom thank-you messages along with their names and photos. When they feel appreciated, they are more likely to feel connected to the program and continue their involvement.
7. Digital Menu Board in the Cafeteria
Hospitals can use digital menu boards to showcase their cafeteria menu in a dynamic way that grabs more attention and digital displays have been shown to increase food sales by 38%. The adoption of a digital menu board can also streamline your hospital cafeteria’s operations by allowing you to make menu changes as you wish, keeping your menus relevant to different parts of the day, and helping your customers place orders more quickly.
A digital menu board offers flexibility in content update through its cloud-based content management portal, which allows you to easily make changes to your menu content in real-time. Moreover, unlike traditional static menu boards, which you need to manually swap to show the right menu content throughout morning, noon, and evening hours, digital menu boards can easily automate this process to always display the right menus on screen in the right hours.
You can also bring your menu to life by highlighting your featured items and daily specials with visually stunning animations and compelling images to entice customers and boost sales. Besides showing menu items and prices, you can also display nutritional information to help your patients make healthier eating decisions.
8. Digital Bulletin Boards
Good medical care depends on effective communication between a hospital and its patients. Digital bulletin boards in hospital hallways or outside examination rooms can easily capture patients and visitors’ attention and get your message across.
For example, you can display annual flu shot reminders, hygiene protocols, or visitor policies to keep everyone informed. With digital bulletin boards, you can easily manage your screen content remotely and apply content changes to all the screens in your hospital at the click of a button.
Bulletin boards are an important tool for relaying internal information between departments and sections of your hospital. Although email is useful, staff may miss important messages during busy days. Inefficient communication costs hospitals an estimated $12 billion annually. Installing digital signage in break rooms and nurse stations ensures critical updates remain visible.
You can create playlists to rotate multiple staff messages like policy updates, wellness reminders, or upcoming training sessions. Beyond everyday communication, the same digital signage network can serve as an emergency alert system, instantly displaying hospital-wide notifications like “Code Blue,” lockdown alerts, or evacuation instructions to keep everyone informed and safe.
9. Interactive Training Resource Hub
Education and training are crucial for anyone to develop and improve their professional skills, productivity, and quality of work. Continuous training throughout healthcare workers’ careers is considered particularly essential, as they are directly involved in the process of saving people’s lives and health on a daily basis.
As patient care and medical technology are constantly evolving, how to continuously update hospital employees with new medical knowledge and skills is a real challenge for any healthcare facility.
Hospital digital signage can be the perfect solution to help tackle this issue. You can transform your digital signage display into an interactive training resource hub for all your staff to view and obtain information related to their jobs. In addition, train your staff about how digital signages work.
For example, they can access the most updated hospital SOP or learn the newest medical research findings. Stream training videos that demonstrate how to perform certain healthcare tasks or use medical instruments can also help reinforce your staff’s knowledge and reduce medical errors.
Conclusion: Hospital Digital Signage
Hospitals can leverage digital signage in various ways to visually communicate better with their patients, visitors, and staff while streamlining their operations and reducing marketing costs. The examples listed in this blog are just some common uses of hospital digital signage. If you would like to learn more about how your healthcare facility can benefit from using digital signage, book a free consultation with our digital signage experts today!
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