Hospital Tells Story With Interactive Video Wall
By Greg Giordano, AIA, Director of Design & Strategy, Sensory Interactive
As part of a significant expansion and modernization of the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation was looking for a way to recognize and honor the many individuals and groups that contributed to the project’s success.
Because of the scale of the modernization project and the hospital’s importance to the community, the foundation’s staff knew they needed a creative and distinctive solution. It would have to provide them with the ability to share information about the hospital’s mission and accomplishments, while also telling the stories of the hundreds of donors, public figures, physicians, staff, and community members who worked together to realize the city and public’s vision for this vital institution.
In response to this challenge, the foundation selected our firm, Sensory Interactive, to create a technology-driven installation in a high-profile location within the hospital’s new art-filled lobby.
Working with project architect Fong & Chan Architects, our team began by evaluating a variety of technology options and architectural treatments that would work together to create a dynamic, eye-catching, and highly interactive installation. We focused our project approach on solving three key challenges:
1.The lobby’s grand scale meant that we needed to create an installation with a visual presence that reflected the importance of its content, and one that wouldn’t be “lost” in the space.
2.The system’s infrastructure requirements — including ventilation and cooling needs, structural support, and equipment access — required close integration with the underlying building design and extensive collaboration with the hospital’s architects and engineers.
3.Because the amount of available content for the display is expected to grow over time, we needed to create a flexible content management system that allowed for a broad range of interactions and content types.
For the digital display component of the installation, we evaluated a wide variety of technology options, including LCD displays, digital light processing tiles, laser phosphor display tiles, and high-resolution LED displays. Each of these technologies has its own set of strengths and weaknesses in the areas of heat output, resolution, brightness, color range, initial and life-cycle costs, and maintenance needs, and it is important to consider the unique needs of the installation’s users and content before selecting a direction.
In this case, our evaluation led us to choose Christie MicroTiles for their unique ability to meet the project’s needs in the areas of resolution, flexibility, durability, and ease of maintenance.
To give the installation even more presence in the expansive lobby, we surrounded the digital display with floor-to-ceiling illuminated glass panels. These panels are lit by ColorGraze LED fixtures from Philips Color Kinetics, and are frosted with a special 3M diffuser film that minimizes reflections and creates an extremely even color disbursement. The LED fixtures are integrated with the installation’s content management system, allowing them to change color to complement the digital display.
Coordinating closely with SFGH Foundation staff, our content creation team developed a comprehensive plan for the organization of the content and created a distinctive graphic language for the digital display. We then oversaw the development of the system’s highly flexible interactive interface and deployed a content management system that allows the hospital to easily update and maintain the content over time.
The result is an engaging video wall that showcases the institution’s remarkable work, and that provides an opportunity to highlight the involvement of the many individuals and groups that contributed to the success of the expansion and modernization project. Designed to maximize the impact of the available content, the installation delivers an engaging and memorable experience for hospital patients and visitors.
In additional to being well received by the Zuckerberg San Francisco General community, the project has also received industry accolades that include a Silver DSE APEX Award and a 2017 Elevate Award for Best Interactive Customer Experience Deployment in the Healthcare category.
Sensory Interactive’s digital signage “Donor Recognition Wall” installation on behalf of the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center was recognized with a Digital Signage Expo 2017 Silver APEX Award. The Donor wall can be seen on DSE’s YouTube.com site. For more information on digital signage see http://www.digitalsignageexpo.net
About The Author
Greg Giordano is the director of design and strategy for Sensory Interactive. He leads the firm’s design services for interactive digital signage projects. Sensory Interactive provides programming, design, project management, content creation, and operations services to healthcare clients nationwide.