Using indoor mapping and wayfinding in hospitals improves patient experience as these methods aid in effortless hospital navigation. For hospital wayfinding solutions, facility managers could try a hospital wayfinding app, a comprehensive navigation technology for wayfinding in healthcare facilities.
Navigation and Wayfinding in Hospitals
Wayfinding in hospitals has become a serious concern for patients and visitors when they enter the facility, especially because they are anxious about their health or the health of a loved one.
For first time visitors, it could be even more confusing if they end up spending more than a few hours at the facility locating a specialist’s office, the diagnostic lab, a cafeteria, etc. in a huge healthcare building.
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The most common visitor complaints on hospital infrastructure are as follows:
- Visitors get frustrated when they are unable to locate a point of interest within the facility
- Visitors need to keep asking for directions constantly to find their way
- Locating emergency exits and obtaining safety instructions
These problems lead to a botched patient experience and does not enhance the image of the facility in public view.
To address these problems, hospital wayfinding apps can be an optimal investment for hospital administrators as these technological platforms which work on Smartphones will help them reach their intended destinations effortlessly and most importantly, save a lot of time.
In addition to this, wayfinding in a healthcare facility will eventually lead to crucial enhancements for hospital managements in relation to operational efficiency and creating an interruption-free environment.
3 Important Uses of a Hospital Wayfinding App
- Patience Experience Enhanced Significantly
- Continual Visitor Feedback
- Brand Recognition
Empowering visitors at hospitals with an indoor wayfinding app which can be used on their individual Smartphones will lead to a holistic healthcare process, culminating in a productive association for both the facility as well as the visitors. Creating a good impression during the first visit is very important, and failing to do so might result in poor patient experience eventually leading to loss in visitors.
Wayfinding apps allow visitors to obtain necessary information of the facility enabling them to reach a certain destination within the hospital on their fingertips, making it an effortless journey from point A to point B.
Let’s briefly look at the utilities these apps provide.
Patience Experience Truly Enhanced
The advent of technology has improved operations in many large facilities with easy and effortless services, however, in the case of hospital wayfinding apps, it’s more than just directing or guiding the patient from one point to another. They also enhance patient experience with features such as push notifications, safety alerts, pre-planned routing, etc.
Continual Visitor Feedback
Feedback from the visitor may not always be genuine or timely in large facilities, as it can be manually curated on pen and paper with a rushed sense of responding randomly to a questionnaire. With these apps, the management can allow visitors to respond on a real-time basis, ensuring the management obtains a firsthand review of their experience in the hospital.
The same reviews and feedback can then be shared on social media profiles of the hospital to showcase patient experience.
Brand Recognition
With hectic competition in the hospital industry, hospitals should ensure necessary efforts are taken to create a strong brand recognition among its patients, visitors, and vendors as well. Hospital wayfinding apps can be the ideal platform to connect to patients/visitors by providing them with advanced technological services and by visually communicating to them the vision, mission, terms of the hospital.
A survey on brand awareness in hospital industry reveals that brand recognition plays an important role in making or breaking the fortune of the hospital, however, a strong brand recognition comes only through 360 degree services provided to visitors.
Patients talk about their experience at hospitals with others and when this talk becomes positive, the brand vitality is enhanced, becoming a great asset for the hospital management.
Listed below are a few benefits of using a hospital wayfinding app
- Both the visitor/patient/customer and the hospital staff/management can locate the shortest route to their intended destination
- Can reduce interruptions of emergency medical staff when they are face questions on directions
- Improves the overall patient/visitor experience at hospitals
- These apps can also restrict visitor to designated areas meant only for doctors and nursing staff
- The visitor can chalk routes and plan course of action based on this
The bigger picture of integrating technology with hospital management is solely to reach out to all visitors at the hospital and enhance their experience of the facility, while reducing the mental stress they have go through.
A hospital wayfinding app will allow users to search for intended locations and get there using the shortest possible route, finding various in-patient wards, out-patient blocks, or restrooms effortlessly.