How Digital Signage Can Support Health Care and Hospital Workers

Across the globe, the healthcare industry is experiencing unprecedented levels of staff turnover. In a recent study of more than 20,000 healthcare workers across healthcare facilities in the United States, almost 25% of physicians and 40% of nurses reported being highly likely to leave their positions within 2 years.

Lack of funding, long working hours, stress, exhaustion, and burnout are driving healthcare professionals to walk out of their jobs for greener pastures elsewhere, some leaving the healthcare industry entirely. 

Healthcare workers are invaluable to society and if we don’t work harder to support and meet the needs of our healthcare staff, we could face a global shortage of nurses and other healthcare workers by 2030.

To avoid this, hospitals and healthcare facilities should do all they can to support their staff and make their jobs more manageable. While it’s not a holistic solution, digital signage can play an important role in supporting the front and back-end operations that healthcare workers manage. 

How Can Digital Signage Software Support Health Care Workers?

Within hospitals, clinics and facilities, healthcare staff juggle multiple responsibilities and often take on additional tasks to fill the shoes of missing staff or staff shortages, often leaving them overworked and exhausted. This, coupled with long shift hours, can drive up levels of employee unhappiness, stress, burnout, and depression.

Digital signage is made up of two or more screens that display visual and text communications across a workspace which benefits staff and patients. Industrial display screens can be used to support healthcare workers in multiple ways and make their day-to-day roles easier, all of which can improve staff retention and reduce turnover.

Reduces the pressure on staff and human resources

Healthcare facilities face a high volume of incoming and outgoing patients, as well as visitors, family members and general walk-ins, all of whom require assistance. This can put pressure on already-strained and understaffed healthcare workers, who are often required to be in multiple places at once. 

Staff often implement rotational shifts where certain workers switch between their existing role and an additional role, such as managing and directing walk-in patients, but this only increases stress and burnout levels. 

Digital signage can help to ease the pressure and expectations placed on healthcare workers. Screens placed at front desks and kiosks can be used to inform new patients of procedures to follow, instruct patients and visitors where to go, and assist patients by answering commonly asked questions. 

Simplifies onboarding and training procedures

While it’s always fantastic to welcome new staff, getting new staff up to speed with all the processes a healthcare facility follows takes time - time that most healthcare workers don’t have because they’re needed elsewhere. This can often result in time-constrained training sessions and new employees could miss out on important information. 

Healthcare practices can use digital signage to work around this problem by creating comprehensive training videos that new employees can watch. This will ensure the employee training and onboarding procedures remain consistent and it reduces pressure on other employees to repeat the same training procedures over and over. 

Healthcare facilities can also share important policies and workplace safety reminders on rotation using staff-facing industrial display screens, ensuring all staff members can refresh their knowledge if need be. 

Streamlines communications from a single source of truth

With healthcare staff on their feet for most of the day, communication is often limited to brief exchanges in hallways or the break room, which can make passing on important information difficult to do. 

Digital signage can streamline communication and ensure all staff members are getting the same information from a single source of truth. Staff schedules, patient statuses, important updates, and other communications can be easily accessed across various screens, so all staff across the healthcare facility are receiving the same information.  

Decreases hallway congestion

Healthcare facilities, particularly larger hospitals, can be confusing to navigate, especially for patients or visitors who aren’t familiar with the layout. Using industrial display screens to provide interactive wayfinding processes for patients can help them to find their way faster. 

This decreases foot traffic in hallways and enables healthcare staff to get where they need to go without continuously stopping and directing visitors and patients. 

Delivers emergency information

In an emergency, information needs to be shared as quickly as possible across a hospital or clinic. Digital signage can deliver accurate emergency information and updates instantly across a facility, as well as for instructions for staff and patients to follow to prevent panic and chaos in the hallways. 

Emergency updates and information can be synced to reflect across all screens simultaneously, so everyone has access to the same notifications if a sudden emergency happens such as a fire or security threat. 

Conclusion

Healthcare workers play a vital role and more needs to be done to provide support and assistance to make their jobs easier to encourage them to remain in the healthcare field. Digital signage is one tool that can be implemented at a large scale for multiple purposes that can ease the pressure on staff. 

ScreenCloud’s cloud-based digital signage software allows healthcare facilities of any size to seamlessly reach and communicate with their staff. Book a demo with us to learn how we can help to streamline and elevate your internal management processes.