It probably won’t surprise you to learn that a whopping 68% of patients consider the wait times at medical offices unreasonable. No one likes to sit and count the minutes as they wait for their name to be called next. However, with the addition of waiting room digital signage, you can improve your patient’s experience and make their wait seem shorter — even when it’s not.
What Gets Displayed on Waiting Room Digital Signage?
Through the use of digital signage, you can decrease the perceived wait time for your patients by providing:
- Private Label Television and Videos: Customized programming of previously recorded material.
- Custom Video Production: Specific content that is created solely for your practice or facility.
- Screen Wrapping: Additional on-screen elements that supplement your main screen.
By offering waiting room digital signage, you improve the experience of your patients and make their wait more enjoyable.
Here are 7 ways digital signage makes your patients’ wait time seem shorter:
1. Digital Signage Decreases Patient Boredom
How we perceive time is often relative to what we are doing or experiencing during the time period.
When we enjoy ourselves or have fun, time passes quickly. When we are bored or disengaged, time passes slowly. So when patients sit in an empty waiting room without entertainment, their wait feels longer.
By providing entertainment, such as television programming, informational videos, sports highlights, movie trailers, and more, you decrease patient boredom and make time feel like it is moving faster.
2. Digital Signage Decreases Patient Stress and Anxiety
Entertaining your patients makes their wait seem shorter, and it can even make them feel better about their appointment.
On-screen entertainment takes a patient’s mind off the moment which helps decrease the amount of stress and anxiety they may have about their appointment.
Upbeat and enjoyable content calms their nerves and makes them feel more comfortable as they wait for their appointment or wait for a loved one to return from their appointment.
3. Digital Signage Delivers Educational and Meaningful Content
Patients can be calmed by entertaining and educational content.
Patients feel more comfortable about an appointment when they understand the procedures or practice they are about to experience. Educational content can soothe your patient’s nerves as it offers a look at what is to come.
By providing information about what patients will experience during their appointment and educating them about the details of your practice or facility, you can make patients feel more confident and secure about their appointment or treatment.
You can also further support their wellbeing by using your waiting room digital signage to share supplemental information about how they take additional steps to improve their health.
4. Digital Signage Matches Your Facility’s Values and Standards
When you use digital signage and videos, you control what content you show. This means you also control what content you don’t show.
Custom programming eliminates the risk of showing material that may offend, annoy, or upset your patients. You don’t need to worry about what may appear on the screen or television programming.
Additionally, you can eliminate the visibility of competitors that may be advertising on television programming.
5. Digital Signage Matches Your Brand Identity
When you create your own content, you can also be sure that your programming closely matches the needs and interests of your clients and patients.
Dynamic scheduling options allow you to plan content for the day. Your staff can turn it on and forget about it for the day. They don’t need to worry about changing the channels when programming ends.
You can schedule your content based on who may be in your office, and you can also set unique programming for different areas of your office, ensuring that your content always matches the interests of your patients.
6. Digital Signage Shares Only Fresh and Timely Content
Leaving your patients in silence in the waiting room will increase their perceived wait time, and so will repeatedly sharing the same content over and over.
You want to provide content that is regularly updated so your patients see fresh content.
With the flexibility of digital signage, you can easily and immediately update your content. You can also add real-time elements such as weather, news, and social media feeds to keep your content engaging. This is especially important if you have patients who are routinely visiting your office.
7. Digital Signage Sets You Apart From Other Offices
In most areas, patients have hundreds of options when it comes to choosing a medical practice.
For your practice or facility to stand out, you need to provide your patients with an exceptional experience from the time they walk in the door. If your competitors provide a more engaging and entertaining experience in their waiting room, your frustrated patients may move on.
Set your practice apart by providing exceptional waiting room content that patients will enjoy watching and make them forget they were even in a waiting room.
Waiting Room Digital Signage At Work
Regardless of whether you’re in charge of a large hospital or a rural clinic, waiting room digital signage can help transform and improve your patients’ visits. By keeping them engaged while they wait for their appointment, your practice can avoid causing frustration, disatisfaction, and stress.
Schedule a demo with Spectrio today and let one of our healthcare marketing experts demonstrate how our digital signage solution can work for your business!