Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas – Healthcare Learning from Other Industries

In my recent post about the Presidential Inauguration and Healthcare, I commented how many times healthcare stays in its closed environment and doesn’t learn from the other industries. This is true in many parts of healthcare IT and that needs to change. While healthcare certainly has special needs and requirements, the attitude that healthcare can’t learn from other industries needs to be corrected if we want to improve healthcare as we know it.

I saw an example of this when I watched this video that talks about the Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas. Look at some of the amazing digital signage technology they show in this video and think about how often you’ve seen them in healthcare.

The sad thing is that many people in healthcare have ignored these technologies with the excuse that they’ve been distracted by ICD-10, meaningful use, ACOs, etc. Certainly each of these items are big priorities, but many of the digital signage technologies mentioned in the video above could help a hospital or healthcare organization achieve their goals.

For example, one of the crazy ACO changes we’re going to see has to do with patient satisfaction. Yes, I know it’s crazy, but it’s coming. The more satisfied your patients are, the more you’re going to get paid. Could a virtual assistant video wall help to increase patient satisfaction? Could an interactive video wall that recognizes gestures provide the wow factor for the patients that visit your hospital? I think it could, but too many people in healthcare don’t get out of their office to learn about these technologies.

Near the end of the above video they say, “mobile is the action, the signage is the call to action.”

Think about this concept in healthcare. Imagine a video wall in your hospital that takes your hospital’s healthcare data and illustrates the challenges and costs of obesity to your health system. Then, alongside that digital illustration you have a call for patients to sign up for your weight loss program. Of course, this same concept could be applied to all of the healthcare initiatives your hospital is working on already.

There are a number of ways digital signage can be used in healthcare. Take a look at Leveraging Digital Signage in Hospitals for a number of examples and a post by Shahid Shah about using digital signage to create real service improvement. It would just be unfortunate if those in healthcare were “too busy” to take advantage of the technology options that are available out there.

I hope that many in healthcare will take part in the Digital Signage Expo (click image below for more details) so we can get some good cross pollination of ideas from what’s being done in other industries in healthcare.

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), I would walk up to a booth that I thought had no relation to healthcare. They’d see the words healthcare on my badge and almost every single time they’d say, “Oh, you’re in healthcare, this is how our technology applies to healthcare.” I expect the same thing will be true at the Digital Signage Expo.

I look forward to the day when healthcare is filled with amazing digital signage that engages patients and healthcare staff well beyond a static ad on the wall. The beautiful part is that the technology is already there. We just need to apply what’s being done in other industries to healthcare.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

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