Hospital & Healthcare Signage: Improving Patient Satisfaction

Taking the time and effort to add to — or enhance — your hospital’s signage strategy can help create a facility that’s as patient-friendly as possible. Here’s how:

Reduce Patient Anxiety

Hospitals are anxiety-inducing. Information can help reduce patient and visitor stress, potentially resulting in better outcomes for everyone involved.

A robust, easy-to-use wayfinding system eliminates the fear of getting lost and helps patients, visitors and new employees feel welcome and cared for. Combine digital and traditional signage to guide visitors and patients to services or departments, and keep them abreast of changes and necessary information regarding the hospital layout and limitations.

Taking the opportunity to educate patients and visitors can go a long way toward reassuring them. Digital signage can display expected wait times in real time, and stand-off displays can highlight images of friendly, caring employees.

Focus on the Youngest Patients

Is there anything scarier for a child than a cold hospital room or a giant metal medical device?

Children’s hospitals and pediatric wards can utilize fun, colorful graphics and signage to make children feel more at ease. From jungle-themed wall murals to ocean-themed MRI machines, a pop of color and a cheerful design can make a world of difference for a nervous child. Additionally, if children are more comfortable, their parents will also be more relaxed.

Educate Patients & Promote Hospital Services

Patients may be unaware of the full range of services you offer, and there’s no better time to inform them than while they’re at your hospital. Are you holding a vaccine clinic? Have you recently hired an award-winning surgeon? Do you participate in community outreach or partner with other hospitals or care facilities? Digital signage can help get the message out.

Improve Internal Communications

The better your internal communications, the better your patient outcomes. You can use digital signage techniques to inform staff about upcoming meetings, schedule changes, new assignments and other timely announcements. You can also utilize print decals on windows, floors, walls and doors to help alert staff to potential hazards or new foot-traffic patterns.

Improve Sound Quality

Enhance your signage by making it functional as well as informative, attractive and inspirational. Hospital audiovisual (AV) sound masking and acoustic management products can be custom printed or painted to complement your signage. Create quieter, more relaxing lounges, improve patient and visitor privacy, and offer your staff calming, productive environments for catching up on paperwork or getting some well-earned rest.

Acing Patient Surveys

By being mindful of both messaging and presentation, digital signage in hospitals can play a significant role in improving patient satisfaction survey scores. Hospitals should consider the design, placement and interactivity of digital signage to ensure it effectively serves the needs of patients and visitors.

Create a positive feedback loop by regularly gathering feedback and conducting surveys to assess the impact of digital signage on patient satisfaction. This way, you can fine-tune your hospital’s strategies and continuously improve the patient experience — which leads to better survey scores.

Now that you understand some of the main benefits of effective hospital signage, let’s take a closer look at one of the most innovative varieties — digital signage:

How to Use Digital Signage

Digital displays and LED video walls are cost-effective, easy to use and able to showcase fully-customized content, such as:

• Estimated wait times in waiting rooms
• Notices about upcoming clinics or events
• Maps or directions to help patients and visitors navigate the hospital
• Interactive directories and wayfinding systems
• Emergency alerts and instructions
• Digital whiteboards for critical areas such as nursing, ICU/CCU and operating rooms

Types of Digital Signage Displays & Where to Use Them

To ensure a successful digital signage strategy, it’s important to incorporate a variety of signage types. Some of the most commonly used include:

• LED screens — Versatile digital display solutions known for their vivid and eye-catching visuals, making them suitable for various applications, including advertising, information dissemination and engaging presentations.
• Interactive touchscreens — User-friendly digital interfaces that facilitate engagement and interaction with content, making them ideal for healthcare, education, retail and other industries seeking to enhance customer or patient experiences.
• Video Walls — Dynamic systems composed of multiple screens seamlessly integrated to create impressive visual displays. This makes them an excellent choice for relaying information and creating immersive environments in diverse settings, from control rooms to retail spaces.

Having the right variety of digital signage types is only half the battle — understanding where they’ll be most advantageous is also crucial. When mapping out your signage placement, consider the following locations:

• Waiting areas — Digital signage in waiting areas serves to keep patients and families informed about wait times, appointment statuses and educational content. This can reduce anxiety and help improve the waiting experience.
• Lobbies — Hospital lobbies benefit from LED screens and digital kiosks that offer wayfinding, promotion of hospital services and emergency notifications, creating a welcoming and informative atmosphere.
• Patient rooms — Interactive touchscreens installed in patient rooms enhance the hospital experience by providing patients with access to educational content, entertainment and the ability to communicate with their care team.

Content Management Systems

Digital signage is only as good as the information (or entertainment) it provides. A user-friendly content management system (CMS) platform gives you the tools and resources to customize your content to suit each application of your digital signage strategy. Here are some examples of CMS platforms your healthcare institution should consider:

• Korbyt is a comprehensive digital signage CMS that empowers businesses with its versatile content management, real-time updates and data-driven insights for creating engaging digital communication strategies.
• Rise Vision is a user-friendly, digital signage platform designed for simplicity, enabling users to easily create, schedule and manage content for displays. This makes it a practical choice for businesses of all sizes.
• 22 Miles is a feature-rich, digital signage software that offers interactive wayfinding, touchless solutions and content management. It’s ideal for enhancing visitor experiences in diverse industries, including healthcare, retail and transportation.
• Visix is a cutting-edge digital signage platform that offers businesses a powerful CMS that can create, schedule and display dynamic content on digital screens — enabling effective communication and engagement with audiences.
• Zoom is a leading video conferencing and communication platform that facilitates seamless virtual meetings, webinars and collaboration. Its ease of use, robust meeting features and commitment to security make the platform a popular choice for connecting people in a variety of professional and personal contexts.

Digital Wayfinding Signage

Interactive touchscreen kiosks equipped with wayfinding capabilities offer a user-friendly solution for patients and visitors navigating the complexities of the hospital environment. These kiosks provide a dynamic and intuitive platform for individuals to effortlessly locate various departments, clinics and amenities within the facility. The interactive nature of these maps ensures a seamless experience, where users can simply touch the screen to find step-by-step directions to their desired destinations.

What makes these systems exceptionally inclusive is their capacity for customization. Hospital administrators can tailor the content to accommodate multiple languages, ensuring that a diverse patient population can easily access critical information. Additionally, these interactive maps can be designed with accessibility features in mind, such as larger text and graphics, high contrast interfaces and screen reader compatibility, ensuring that all individuals — regardless of their abilities — can benefit from these invaluable navigation tools.

While digital signage is a helpful tool for hospitals, it’s not the only option. A well-rounded strategy includes a variety of different signage mediums, including:

Medical Device Wraps

Medical devices like MRIs and CAT scans can be intimidating for both children and adults. Anxiety can cause the heart to race and blood pressure to rise, making it potentially harder to get accurate readings. Adding custom-designed wraps can play a role in reducing this stress, improving patient outcomes and satisfaction. Wraps can be applied to stationary equipment or portable devices.

Outdoor Banners & Signs

You don’t want visitors leaving their cars in reserved spots or drop-off areas, which is why hospitals should clearly label where drop-offs, emergency room visitors and guests should park. This avoids parking delays, congestion or the need to tow vehicles. This also decreases distractions, enabling security and parking attendants to focus on everyday responsibilities. Weather-resistant signage can be quickly installed and won’t need to be replaced for years!

Retractable Displays & Banner Stands

Promote health clinics, free testing services, fundraising opportunities and other announcements with banner stands and displays. You can use retractable displays for a portable, easy-to-store solution or add hanging banners to indoor or outdoor settings. As long as your banners are printed on the right materials, there’s no limit to where you can display them.

Remember: Outdoor displays should be weather-resistant and visible at night, which is why you’ll need to make sure you select the right materials for the most effective signage.

Literature Holders

Create eye-catching displays to hold educational pamphlets, health guides and paperwork. Patients and visitors will be more likely to notice these resources if they’re customized or stand out from a wall or table.

Wall Murals & Window Graphics

Blank, white hospital walls don’t inspire comfort. Adding wall or window coverings to patient rooms, hallways, waiting rooms and other areas can create a friendly environment that distracts and relaxes patients. Using temporary decals or adhesive vinyl makes it possible to switch out décor every season or completely remove it if you choose.

Wall murals can also be used to honor hospital donors and foundations or to promote marketing campaigns.

Custom-printed Sound Management Products

Both custom cut and off-the-rack acoustic panels can be painted or printed with graphics and typography as well as solid colors and prints. Think of these products as functional signage that seamlessly integrates with your new or existing space and design.

Vehicle Wraps

Hospital-owned vehicles are essentially moving billboards. Whether rolling down the highway or parked in front of buildings, they likely get thousands of viewing impressions every day from other drivers and pedestrians. Why not take advantage of this traveling advertising space?

Special messaging can be tailored to particular vehicles, encouraging mobile vaccinations, blood donations or healthy lifestyle choices.

DGI has helped hospitals and healthcare facilities of all sizes create soothing, engaging displays that prioritize every patient’s experience. To talk about digital signage options for your facility, contact us here. We’re happy to help!