Digital Wayfinding in Hospitals: Using Beacons to Boost Accessibility and Save Time
Approximately 50% of people who visit large healthcare facilities get lost while trying to find their destinations. Why? Because wayfinding systems in many large-scale healthcare campuses are sorely outdated and woefully inefficient.
Poor wayfinding in hospitals plays a central role in missed appointments, patient dissatisfaction, lengthy wait times, and operational inefficiencies. Nationwide, these issues cost healthcare organizations hundreds of billions of dollars each year.
But here’s the good news: Interactive digital wayfinding signage systems and beacon technology are dramatically improving navigation in forward-thinking hospitals all over the county. Read on to learn how beacon wayfinding is saving time, boosting patient satisfaction, and improving the healthcare experience overall.
Patients Are Taking Advantage of Remote Check-In
One of the greatest sources of patient dissatisfaction in healthcare facilities is excessive wait time. But hospitals with interactive digital wayfinding and beacon technology are shortening the admission process considerably.
Patients use their smart devices to fill out intake forms and check themselves in for appointments when they reach the hospital. Or, they can use an interactive kiosk to complete the self-check-in process instead. An integrated hospital app can send notifications to checked-in patients alerting them of their place in the queue and their estimated wait time.
Beacon technology can trigger personalized push notifications designed to enhance the healthcare experience from the moment a patient or visitor walks through the door.
Beacons Are Providing Post-Discharge Assistance
When a patient or visitor leaves a healthcare facility, beacons are providing the follow-up guidance they need. If a patient needs to pick up a prescription at a nearby pharmacy, beacons can guide them there. If someone needs an MRI in a specialty unit located elsewhere on the campus, the same idea applies.
Hospitals Are Personalizing Patient Engagement
Healthcare administrators are increasingly taking advantage of beacon technology to personalize the healthcare experience in real-time. Visitors and patients can get a welcome message when they enter the facility or personalized information about the physician they’ll be seeing. Facilities are also benefiting from self-service appointment booking and other highly personalized beacon features like:
● Parking suggestions based on appointment locations
● Parking reminders to help visitors quickly and easily locate their vehicles
● Proximity-based messaging triggered by visitors’ location
● Location-based emergency response notifications
● Proximity-based content streaming to reduce perceived wait times and educate patients
● Much more
Interactive Mapping Is Delivering Intuitive Navigation
When a healthcare facility has several buildings, multiple parking lots, mazes of hallways and floors, and hundreds of rooms, navigation can feel overwhelmingly difficult. Unsurprisingly, patients and visitors get confused, frustrated, and even anxious about whether they’ll make it to the right room on time. Senior patients and visitors are especially vulnerable.
Although traditional wayfinding tools may be in place, many visitors have trouble finding and deciphering these guides. They turn to facility staff for directions, which is far from ideal given the shortage of resources many hospitals deal with. But interactive digital wayfinding kiosks and beacon technology are solving this issue one hospital at a time.
Visitors can patients search for their destination and get turn-by-turn navigation via an integrated smartphone app. They follow real-time directions throughout the facility and get where they need to go on time. Fewer staff interruptions, improved traffic flow, and happier patients are the result.
Explore Digital Hospital Wayfinding Solutions from Oppna Digital
If your healthcare facility is in the market for better wayfinding, let our team at Oppna Digital help! As an end-to-end digital wayfinding and signage solutions provider, we specialize in software design and functionality, hardware procurement, content management, app development, and much more. To learn more about how our digital solutions can enhance your hospital, feel free to request a demo or give us a call today at 651-237-5677.