These types of time-sensitive requests are all from various departments in the medical center interested in communicating with our employees, visitors and patients. Requests like these represent only some of the challenges we have communicating in a diverse, around-the-clock environment with a substantial amount of high-stress, potentially, high-stakes activity.
Healthcare facilities have long utilized digital signage for employee communication, program marketing and to enhance the patient experience. Digital communications installations provide the ability to communicate instantaneously and can be used to effectively reduce perceived wait times, and reduce patient and visitor anxiety, as well as provide way finding throughout a healthcare facility. Digital installations can be designed to enhance the environment including the use of donor walls. Technology can also be used for patient education and is poised to take on a more significant role since patient-specific education has now been identified as one of the core objectives in meaningful use requirements that directly impact Medicare reimbursements for hospitals.
By Patricia Mitrano, Director of Visual Communications, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center
“For the screens. It’s too wordy, work your magic and make it look pretty.”
“Please place on the TV’s, he is coming at 10am and we want him to see it as he walks in the door.”
“This message has to get out to employees now; we can’t wait until someone is already in the emergency room.”
These types of time-sensitive requests are all from various departments in the medical center interested in communicating with our employees, visitors and patients. Requests like these represent only some of the challenges we have communicating in a diverse, around-the-clock environment with a substantial amount of high-stress, potentially, high-stakes activity.
Healthcare facilities have long utilized digital signage for employee communication, program marketing and to enhance the patient experience. Digital communications installations provide the ability to communicate instantaneously and can be used to effectively reduce perceived wait times, and reduce patient and visitor anxiety, as well as provide way finding throughout a healthcare facility. Digital installations can be designed to enhance the environment including the use of donor walls. Technology can also be used for patient education and is poised to take on a more significant role since patient-specific education has now been identified as one of the core objectives in meaningful use requirements that directly impact Medicare reimbursements for hospitals.
Employee Communication
To better understand our communications challenge, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center (NBIMC), a Barnabas Health facility, is a 673-bed regional care teaching hospital, with more than 800 physicians, 3,200 employees and 150 volunteers. With over 300,000 outpatient visits and 25,000 admissions each year, NBIMC provides comprehensive health care as well as preventive programs that promote wellness in the community. NBIMC is one of the top three hospitals in the nation in the number of heart transplants and Children's Hospital of New Jersey at NBIMC has the most comprehensive pediatric cardiac care program in the region. Barnabas Health is New Jersey’s largest integrated healthcare delivery system.
Digital screens have been installed in our lobbies and employee-gathering spaces. A few years ago this was “big news,” but today these displays are an integral part of our digital culture. Flat screens are installed in strategically located areas. Our surveys have found that our employees look to the screens as a popular way to keep up-to-date with what is going on in the medical center. As a 24-hour, around the clock facility, healthcare has always had the challenge of communicating with a diverse workforce. In terms of cultural diversity, three shifts and not every employee having access to email, digital signage helps bridge the access gap. Through the good working relationship from the beginning with the Information and Technology team, we were able to link the digital screen information to the home screen of the intranet, exponentially increasing the reach of the message to each employee’s desktop computer. For employees not tied to a computer, opt-in text messaging to an employee’s mobile device is being explored to simultaneously communicate the same message to our diverse groups.
Marketing
The marketing approach and the budget that supports it, has progressively become more digital and less traditional, which means that all messaging is now specifically designed to be integrated in the out-of-home environment.
An effort launched last October, which was breast cancer awareness month, serves as a great example of a comprehensive initiative…
The Pink Crusade was launched with an enhanced website (www.PinkCrusade.org), geo-targeted, customized digital ads, elevator wraps, emailed newsletters, Facebook posts and onsite digital messages. This strategic content, designed to raise breast health awareness and make it easy to make an appointment, resulted in a significant measurable increase in mammogram appointments during the campaign. The digital screens and elevator wraps on site reinforced the breast health message targeting close to 200 women who visited on breast cancer-screening day, reiterating our messages at various touch points.
Examples
![Digital Screen Design]()
Design for Digital Screen
![Facebook Post]()
Facebook Post
![Elevator Wrap]()
Elevator Wrap
Patient Experience
Providing valuable content on designated digital screens can inform, educate, ease anxiety and create a more positive patient experience. For example, there is a perioperative tracking system screen in the waiting area that shows a numbered code for each patient. The family member or friend can see in real time whether the patient is in the operating room, post-operative area or has been assigned to a patient room.
Waiting areas are also ideal for:
- Public health messages: heart transplant, lung transplant, children’s heart center
- Facility and site-specific information: awards, gift shop hours, chapel, parking
- To publicize events: lectures, support groups, fundraising
Site-specific content supplemented with syndicated content can provide culturally diverse, entertaining and educational information, and is a great solution when there is not enough video produced in-house to populate a correctly timed loop.
Digital screens can not only enhance the environment, but when utilized for wayfinding or directional navigation can also improve the look of the halls and avoid visual clutter and ambiguity, which is a common concern at a large institution.
Patient Education
Educating patients using digital signage can potentially have a direct association with reimbursements and make a financial impact. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services lists patient-specific education as one of the Core Objectives of Meaningful Use. Meeting these core objectives has a direct impact on hospital reimbursements and has therefore become a communications priority.
Now Medicare can penalize a hospital for not reducing their readmission rate, whether it is for the same illness or an entirely new one. If hospitals can use the technology to educate and inform at the bedside, at discharge and even with a mobile app to use at home, emphasizing the importance of following doctors’ orders, taking medication properly and keeping follow-up appointments, this behavior has been shown to contribute to reducing hospital readmissions.
Reducing readmissions through patient education using digital signage is a crucial argument for return on the signage investment. Using digital communications in healthcare could prove an important tool in achieving this goal.
Summary
Digital signage in healthcare settings is essential in communicating instantaneously and accurately with all stakeholders, not only for the reasons already mentioned, but also because such communications networks provide the flexibility to create new communications solutions as needs arise.
Author Patricia Mitrano is a member of the Digital Signage Expo Advisory Board and will be presenting a Roundtable Discussion on healthcare entitled, "Digital Signage in Healthcare Settings,” at Digital Signage Expo 2015 on Thursday, March 12 from 12:30-1:30pm at the Las Vegas Convention Center. For more information about DSE or to register for this or any other educational seminar or workshop and learn about digital signage go to www.dse2015.com
Patricia Mitrano is Director of Visual Communications at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center (NBIMC), an affiliate of the Saint Barnabas Health Care System, the largest integrated hospital system in New Jersey. Patricia has extensive experience in content creation, graphic design, internal event staging and communications. With the responsibility to communicate management messages to 3,000+ employees, she became intrigued with digital signage as an efficient medium. She has spearhead the research, purchase and deployment of a seven screen digital employee messaging system incorporating 1,000 existing hospital TV’s for her facility. Patricia serves on the Digital Signage Advisory Board.
