10 ways digital signs can improve your hospital

By SONIFI Health

August 27, 2021

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If flyers, poster boards and clipped-up papers are how you get information to people in your hospital, it’s time to rethink what kind of message you’re sending.

Printed pieces can easily be overlooked and quickly become outdated.

Static artwork in waiting rooms does little to effectively comfort and reassure worried families.

Sloppy handwriting or a missed alert can compromise your patients’ safety.

When you shift your signage to a digital platform, your team will have easy ways to update what you communicate, who you communicate it to, when and where you need to communicate it.

Here are 10 types of content digital signs can help you distribute in a streamlined, cost-effective and fully integrated way throughout your hospital:

Directories and wayfinding
Your location likely has lots of units and hallways for patients and visitors to navigate. Save them — and your staff — time and frustration¹ with dynamic wayfinding signs that easily guide them where to go.
Population health
Post reminders about the importance of vaccines, screenings, community health initiatives or seasonal safety tips throughout the year.
Staff communication
In employee break rooms and lounges, digital signs can be used to:
- Remind them about policy updates or upcoming events
- Recognize² outstanding performance and service
- Encourage screening and vaccination conversations with patients
- Offer motivational messages and notes of gratitude
Temporary alerts
Refresh screens with announcements about visitor restrictions, construction relocations, holiday hours or paths to safety during an emergency situation.
Patient information
Where it’s appropriate in your hospital, digital signs can display a patient’s status to waiting family members, and keep them informed in the patient room.

With EHR-integrated digital door signs, digital whiteboards and interactive TVs, clinicians and patients can easily connect on the information displayed to continually improve the care experience, quality and safety.
Intentional ambience
A video display of a natural environment with soothing sounds can create calming spaces in your hospital to help visitors manage anxiety and stress.³
Positive distraction
Curated content, entertainment and programming on digital displays offer patients and visitors positive distractions that provide familiar comforts to shift their minds away from worry and uneasiness.
Cafeteria menus
An integration with your point-of-sale system can automatically display available options, along with prices, nutritional information and dietary notes.
Donor recognition
Create a beautiful display that honors your benefactors in a way they would appreciate most. A digital donor wall lets you quickly update and reformat the display — including names, videos, images or biographies — as you receive new gifts.
Branding & marketing
Waiting rooms, lobbies and other common areas are great places to use screens to:
- Share messages from leadership to welcome visitors
- Reinforce the organization’s mission & initiatives
- Advertise on-site services, specialty care & tertiary locations
- Promote community outreach, events & foundation projects
- Increase brand awareness⁴ with consistent messaging and imagery

Whether it’s a touchscreen, video or integrated display, digital signs can be a valuable addition to your hospital.

Each digital endpoint can be updated as often as you need to best communicate with your visitors, patients and employees.

A digital signage solution can cohesively reflect your brand as you deliver content automatically, dynamically and intentionally to the people who need it most.

DIGITAL SIGNAGE WITH SONIFI HEALTH

Want to learn more about how your hospital can improve patient, visitor and staff experience with strategic digital signage?

Watch this free on-demand webinar: “Connect with visitors, calm patients and inform staff: Why your hospital’s signage strategy should go digital.”

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Editor’s note: This article was originally published in January 2020. It has been updated for freshness and comprehensiveness.