The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is a global organization focused on improving health through information and technology. This five-day event showcases the latest advancements in healthcare IT, offering a unique blend of innovative ideas, expert insights, and the opportunity to connect with peers and industry leaders.

This year, Phunware will be among the leading innovators at HIMSS, showcasing how we’ve spent the past 15 years leveraging our extensive expertise in mobile applications to transform patient experiences for health systems like Phoenix Children’s and Greater Baltimore Medical Center. Our journey has equipped us with the insights necessary to develop industry-leading healthcare solutions, specifically designed to enhance patient care and streamline healthcare operations while saving costs.

Phunware is actively shaping the future of the patient-facing Digital Front Door by equipping Hospitals with the technology needed to unify the patient journey:

Holistic Integration: At Phunware, we understand that healthcare is more than just a service—it’s an ecosystem. Our platform extends beyond traditional tools, offering end-to-end solutions that encompass self-service EHR integrations, swift mobile check-ins, and seamless billing processes. We focus on ensuring every touchpoint contributes to a cohesive and efficient healthcare experience for both providers and patients.

Location Awareness: Navigating large healthcare facilities can be challenging for patients and visitors. Phunware’s real-time wayfinding and location services are designed to remove this friction, ensuring that patients, visitors and staff can easily find parking, locate their destination, and move through hospital campuses effortlessly. Our technology not only guides patients physically but also supports them throughout their healthcare journey.

Insightful Analytics: Data is at the heart of modern healthcare. Phunware’s advanced analytics tools offer a window into patient progress and behaviors, empowering healthcare teams to refine and personalize the patient experience, both on-campus and remotely. By harnessing the power of data, we help healthcare providers optimize operations and deliver more targeted, effective care.

As the healthcare industry moves towards more digital and patient-centered approaches, Phunware is your ideal partner in developing Digital Front Doors—virtual gateways that streamline access to healthcare services and information. In an era where every second counts, our solutions are designed to ensure that hospitals and healthcare facilities don’t just keep up, but lead the way in digital innovation.

We invite you to meet with us at HIMSS 2024 to discover how Phunware can transform your healthcare facility and elevate the patient experience. Don’t let your hospital fall behind in the digital revolution. Embrace change, drive better outcomes for patients, families, and staff, and set new standards in healthcare excellence.

Meet with us for a free consultation and see how we can make a difference together. See you at HIMSS 2024!

The post Improve the patient experience with Phunware at HIMSS appeared first on Phunware.

At the forefront of this revolution is the Digital Patient Experience.

The importance of the digital patient experience cannot be overstated, as it plays a pivotal role in shaping patients’ perceptions and satisfaction with their care. Hence, investment in digital solutions is reportedly an essential action for improved healthcare experience.

After all, a positive patient experience can lead to increased satisfaction, improved treatment adherence, and even better health outcomes.

In this blog post, we’ll delve into the exciting world of digital healthcare, exploring how technology is shaping how we access and manage our health. From user-friendly healthcare apps and websites to the latest trends and innovations, and the challenges that come with this digital transformation – we’ll uncover everything including the building blocks of a successful digital patient experience.

Understanding the Digital Patient Experience

Digital Patient Experience (DPE) refers to the use of digital technology for patient engagement activities that take place both inside and outside the healthcare environment. Digital patient experience enhances the journey of a patient through a healthcare organization by making the process of receiving care easier and more efficient.

Unlike traditional healthcare interactions that often involve face-to-face consultations, paperwork, and manual processes, the digital patient experience leverages technology to improve accessibility, convenience, and efficiency in healthcare delivery. 

Benefits of a Positive Digital Patient Experience

The implementation of digital patient experience offers several advantages, not just for healthcare providers but also for patients. Some of the key benefits that come with a positive digital patient experience are:

Improved Patient Satisfaction

With the use of digital technology, patients have access to more personalized touch points with their care providers which leads to improved patient satisfaction and engagement. Patients can access their medical records, ask questions, view their results, and even book consultations with clinicians, all from their mobile devices. This promotes a higher level of engagement between patients and care providers leading to better health outcomes.

Enhanced Access to Healthcare Services

Digital technologies enable patients to access medical services, such as telehealth or virtual visits. This is helpful for patients who find it difficult to access healthcare services, such as aging adults or those living in rural areas.

Better Health Outcomes

Digital technologies enable effective monitoring of patient health records. This enhances diagnoses and empowers the healthcare organization to offer more personalized advice. 

Improved Operational Efficiency

With digital technologies, healthcare operational processes become faster and more efficient. From patient check-ins to storage of medical records, care providers can safely manage and store data in the cloud. Automation of healthcare processes such as scheduling, reminders, and follow-ups simplify operational processes, resulting in time-saving and fewer resource requirements.

Building Blocks of a Successful Digital Patient Experience

Patients today expect the same level of convenience and personalization from their healthcare providers as they do from other industries. Therefore, healthcare organizations must understand the core elements of a digital patient experience so they can meet patients’ expectations. The building blocks of a successful digital patient experience are:

Seamless Appointment Scheduling and Access

The first step towards creating a successful digital patient experience is to ensure that patients can easily book and access appointments. Utilizing online booking platforms and implementing virtual waiting rooms and telemedicine capabilities has been shown to increase convenience for both providers and patients thus, they should be a priority.

To further enhance the appointment scheduling and access process, healthcare providers can leverage the digital experience to guide patients throughout their journey, from booking to attending their physical appointments with instantaneous reminders, and GPS and on-site navigation to easily attend their appointments. 

Personalized Patient Portals

Empowering patients with access to their health records, customizable features, and patient-centric information is an integral part of digital patient experiences. Healthcare organizations should develop personalized patient portals with enhanced patient engagement capabilities.

Learn more about how Phunware’s tech delivers unmatched growth for healthcare organizations

Communication and Engagement Tools

Leveraging secure messaging and chatbots on the patient portals allows for effective. Patients can get quick responses to queries, and access interactive and educative resources. This will enable them to better understand their treatment plans and participate more in their care.

Integrating Wearable Devices and Remote Monitoring

Connecting patients’  wearables and implementing remote monitoring allow for real-time health tracking. Integrating devices such as smartwatches, and smart thermometers with patient portals will enable healthcare organizations to capture real-time patient wellness information and offer proactive healthcare interventions.

Designing User-Friendly Healthcare Apps and Websites

A fundamental part of making healthcare services better and more accessible is to ensure the digital patient experience delivers a good user experience (UX). Many factors contribute to good UX, including:

• Intuitive navigation with clear and concise instructions.
• Clear and organized information structure
• Visually appealing design

Responsive Design for Mobile Accessibility

Easy access to healthcare services on mobile platforms is now a necessity, and this is where responsive design comes into the picture. Responsive design helps healthcare platforms to adapt to different screen sizes, ensuring optimized features and usability across devices. It also entails designing healthcare platforms to be mobile-friendly, e.g., the use of large buttons for touching/tapping, optimizing image, scripts, and other resources to reduce load times.

Additionally, apps focused on monitoring and tracking health data need to provide reliable and secure data handling. This denotes the need for effective backend integration, security protocols, and testing approaches. 

Incorporating User Feedback and Iterative Improvements

To create functional healthcare apps and websites, it’s essential to collect patient feedback and iteratively use it to enhance the platform based on their needs. Some strategies for incorporating user feedback for improvement include

• Conducting usability tests with real users to identify pain points, areas for improvement, and opportunities for innovation.
• Providing accessible channels for users to share their feedback, such as surveys, contact forms, and social media.

Overcoming Challenges in Digital Patient Experience

As promising and transformative as the technologies propagating patient experience, some challenges must be addressed to fully realize the potential of the digital patient experience.

For example, ensuring the privacy and security of patient data is paramount as we transition to more digital technologies. Privacy and data security concerns can be addressed by implementing robust data security systems that comply with all applicable regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). 

Additionally, all digital solutions should be designed with explicit data and privacy settings that give patients control over their data.

Bridging the Digital Divide

Disparities in digital access and literacy can lead to unequal access to healthcare and digital services. This results in a digital divide between underserved and marginalized populations and the general population. Healthcare providers can ensure inclusivity by collaborating with local municipalities to create more affordable access to digital technologies.

Additionally, training programs that provide digital literacy and healthcare information to underserved populations can be an effective way to bridge the digital gap.

Overcoming Technological Barriers

Integrating legacy systems with new digital solutions can be a major hurdle for healthcare providers. It can also be challenging to train healthcare professionals to use new digital solutions and technologies. To overcome these barriers, healthcare providers should focus on creating strategic plans that incorporate digital transformation across multiple platforms. It’s also important to provide caregivers with adequate training and support. 

By leveraging the strengths of digital technologies and existing healthcare processes, providers can effectively mitigate any technological barriers and drive greater patient experience.  

Future Trends and Innovations

With revolutionary solutions reshaping how healthcare works, the digital patient experience is quickly becoming the new reality of healthcare. Digital advancements and innovations have enabled us to transform the traditional healthcare experience into something more personalized, accessible, and cost-efficient.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are beneficial for healthcare in terms of personalized and predictive patient care and diagnosis. This technology can be used to monitor patient health at scale, as well as provide personalized recommendations and support for patients based on their medical histories.

AI and ML can also be used to support treatments with evidence-based data, enabling doctors to make more informed decisions about patient diagnoses and recommendations. An example of this is the Canadian AI company Atomwise, which uses AI-supported technology to analyze medical records and predict potential targeted therapies for cancers. 

Virtual and augmented realities (VR and AR) are also transforming healthcare by providing patients with immersive experiences. Phunware is pioneering geolocation-based triggers that deliver timely directions and content to users as they enter and exit the healthcare facility. With AR, this could be further be applied to wayfinding or other onsite experiences.

Furthermore, medical professionals can provide training for healthcare staff using virtual simulations to mimic real-world scenarios. 

Blockchain technology, although still developing, allows for secure data exchange between providers. This enables patients to easily switch between providers without worrying about loss of data. 

Blockchain facilitates data interoperability which ensures that data is accessible across different platforms and sources. This allows healthcare providers to share information across organizations thus, empowering patients to access the best healthcare regardless of their location. An example of such technology is the US-based company MedicalChain, which uses blockchain technology to securely transfer medical records between providers, resulting in better care for patients. 

Conclusion

As we’ve explored throughout this blog post, the digital patient experience is undeniably a cornerstone of modern healthcare. It is transforming how patients access and manage their health, leading to numerous advantages and most importantly better overall health outcomes.

To create a successful digital patient experience, it’s crucial to focus on these essential elements:

• Developing user-friendly healthcare apps and websites
• Addressing challenges like privacy concerns, digital divide, and technological barriers
• Keeping up with future trends and innovations such as AI, VR, AR, and blockchain

Embracing these key components and prioritizing the patient experience will help ensure your healthcare organization remains competitive and can always meet the changing needs of patients.

If you’re new to patient experience or already have an existing patient experience system but looking to elevate how patients perceive the care they receive in your establishment, chat with us to see how you can improve the quality of service one digital interaction at a time.

We provide comprehensive digital solutions for healthcare organizations to enable them to deliver a satisfying experience for their patients.

Chat with us to know how you can improve your patient experience one digital interaction at a time!

The post Revolutionizing Healthcare: The Digital Patient Experience appeared first on Phunware.

Healthcare organizations providing a positive patient experience will gain a competitive advantage. According to Deloitte research, hospitals with improved patient experience perform better financially. The research also found that nurse-patient engagement – how nurses interface with patients, has a profound impact on providing better care.

Why does patient experience matter for both patients and healthcare providers?

For patients, a positive experience can lead to increased trust in their care team, better adherence to treatment plans, and improved well-being. On the other hand, healthcare providers benefit from higher patient satisfaction scores, stronger patient-provider relationships, increased patient retention, and ultimately, a more successful practice.

In this blog, we’ll delve into the world of patient experience, exploring its importance and strategies for enhancing patient experience. We’ll also cover how to evaluate patient experience systems and how you can overcome common challenges with patient experience.

Understanding Patient Experience

Patient experience encompasses all interactions that patients have with healthcare providers, from the moment they step into a facility to the follow-up care they receive after treatment. It goes beyond just the clinical aspects of care, taking into account factors such as communication, empathy, and the overall environment. The quality of these experiences can significantly impact patient satisfaction, health outcomes, and even the reputation of healthcare providers.

Patient experiences can be broken down into two main categories: physical and digital. Physical experiences are those that occur in person, such as the way patients are greeted and treated by the staff, the cleanliness and comfort of the facility, and the overall level of care they receive. Digital experiences are those that occur online or through mobile devices, such as the ability to access patient records, schedule appointments, and communicate with providers.

Both physical and digital experiences are important to patient satisfaction. According to this study on the impact of a hospital’s physical environment, the physical environment of a healthcare facility can reduce patient stress and improve outcomes. The study also reported an increase in staff effectiveness in delivering care.

The Impact of Positive Patient Experience

A positive patient experience has a tangible impact on various aspects of healthcare, which include:

Improved Patient Satisfaction

When patients have a positive experience, they are more likely to be satisfied with their care and remain loyal to the healthcare provider. This can lead to increased patient retention and referrals.

Better Health Outcomes

A positive patient experience can contribute to better health outcomes by fostering trust and open communication between patients and healthcare providers. This, in turn, encourages patients to follow treatment plans more closely, resulting in improved health outcomes.

According to recent results from The Beryl Insitute – Ipsos PX Pulse, half (51%) of Americans surveyed believes a good patient experience contributes to their healing.

Reduced Healthcare Costs

A positive patient experience enables healthcare providers to identify areas for improvement, streamline processes, and reduce inefficiencies. This can lead to lower operational costs, decreased readmission rates, and reduced costs for healthcare organizations.

Strategies for Enhancing Patient Experience

A creative strategy is crucial in ensuring a seamless, positive experience for patients. Let’s dive into the different approaches that can help improve patient experience

Communication

Effective communication is fundamental to a positive patient experience. You can improve communication and information sharing by

1. Encouraging open communication and active listening in interactions between healthcare providers and patients.
2. Providing clear and comprehensive information about diagnoses, treatment options, and potential side effects.
3. Leveraging tools like patient portals, secure messaging, and telehealth to facilitate communication and information sharing.

Empathy and Compassion

Creating an empathetic and compassionate environment is vital for fostering trust and satisfaction. You can do this by

1. Cultivating a compassionate healthcare environment that encourages staff to treat patients with kindness, respect, and understanding.
2. Offering workshops and training sessions to help carers develop and refine their empathetic communication skills.
3. Recognizing and responding to patients’ emotional concerns and providing appropriate support.

Accessibility and Convenience

Ensuring that care is accessible and convenient can greatly enhance the patient experience. You can create accessible healthcare by

1. Implementing efficient scheduling systems and minimizing wait times for appointments
2. Enhancing accessibility for diverse patient populations such as language translation services and accommodating patients with disabilities or special needs such as braille signage in high-traffic areas like entrances and waiting rooms.
3. Creating a comfortable, welcoming environment with amenities like ample seating, and clean and accessible restrooms.
4. Providing physical accessibility such as wheelchair-accessible ramps and elevators, and accessible parking. You can also provide patients with tools that guide them to the right physical spaces, such as maps and wayfinding signs.

Shared Decision-Making

Involving patients in their care can also lead to better outcomes and higher satisfaction. You can encourage shared decision-making through these methods:

1. Actively engaging patients in discussions about their treatment options and preferences.
2. Providing educational resources and tools to help patients make informed decisions.
3. Collaborating with patients to set realistic and achievable health goals.

Continuity of Care

Ensuring continuity of care is essential for a positive patient experience. You can deliver a seamless experience through:

1. Coordinated care across different facilities such as primary care providers, specialists, and other healthcare professionals.
2. Effective transitions through healthcare settings and proper care handoffs
3. Personalized care plans that address each patient’s unique needs and preferences.

Technology plays an instrumental role in enabling this continuity of care. Electronic health records (EHRs), telemedicine platforms, and mobile applications facilitate real-time information sharing between healthcare providers, reducing the chances of fragmented or uncoordinated care. Furthermore, these digital solutions enable remote monitoring and virtual consultations, making it easier for patients to stay connected with their healthcare team and receive ongoing support. 

Patient Feedback and Engagement

Actively involving patients in their care and seeking their feedback can lead to valuable insights and improvements. You can do this by

1. Collecting regular feedback through surveys, focus groups, or informal conversations.
2. Inviting patients to participate in committees or advisory councils focused on enhancing care and patient experience.
3. Leveraging patient support groups where patients share experiences and learn from one another.

Unlock the full potential of your healthcare facility with Phunware’s innovative patient experience solutions!

Overcoming Challenges in Improving Patient Experience

Improving patient experience involves coordinating various aspects of care delivery which can often come with many challenges. Some of the prominent challenges include:

Resource Constraints

Healthcare organizations are often under-resourced, which can make it challenging to provide a high-quality patient experience. One way to work within resource constraints is to focus on the most important areas for improvement. For example, if a hospital is short-staffed and wants to improve wait times in the emergency room they could leverage technology to automate manual tasks such as check-in or accessing medical records.

Resistance to Change

When healthcare providers try to improve the patient experience, they often have to manage staff who are reluctant to adapt to the new ways. You can address this resistance by involving staff members in the planning process. When staff feel like they have a say in how things will change, they are more likely to be supportive of the change.

Cultural and Language Barriers

Healthcare organizations often face some challenges when handling patients from different cultural backgrounds. You can overcome these cultural and language barriers by hiring interpreters. Additionally, you can train staff on cultural competency as this will help them to understand the different cultures of their patients.

Measuring and Evaluating Patient Experience

Evaluating patient experience is essential for identifying areas for improvement. It also helps to ensure that healthcare providers are meeting patients’ needs and expectations. By regularly assessing patient experience, organizations can make data-driven decisions, track progress, and show their commitment to providing high-quality care.

Common metrics such as patient safety, wait time, bedside manner, and patient satisfaction surveys are handy measurement tools to evaluate patients’ experiences. Additionally, you can use The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey to get a full picture of patients’ experiences if your healthcare organization is eligible to participate in the HCAHPS in the data collection and reporting involved.

Technology can also play an important role in capturing patient feedback. There are many technologies available today that you can use, such as patient portals, text messaging, and social media which often incorporate analytics that enable you to evaluate how patients are perceiving the care they receive from your facility.

You can use one or a combination of these tools to get feedback from patients and engage them in discussions about their experiences.

The data collected from patient experience surveys must be used toward improving healthcare over time. For example, if the data shows that patients are not satisfied with how their pain is managed, the healthcare organization can take steps to improve its pain management techniques.

Case Studies: Successful Patient Experience Initiatives

Virginia Hospital Center

An interesting case study of a successful patient experience initiative is how Virginia Hospital Center (VHC) improved its patient experience with a cohesive mobile app that focused on enhancing patients’ convenience and care.

VHC leveraged Phunware’s tech such as blue dot SDK, GPS, and more to provide patients, visitors, and staff with access to interactive maps that direct them to their location in real-time as well as enable patients to manage their appointments through remote telehealth.

Dignity Health

Another outstanding case study is how Dignity Health fulfilled the unique patient experience needs of its healthcare facilities across 39 sites.

Dignity Health leveraged Phunware’s tech to provide patients and visitors with solutions such as smooth routing throughout healthcare facilities across multiple floors. Patients can confidently navigate the facilities and access physicians and departments seamlessly.

The solution also benefited staff and administrators. They can further improve the patient experience with insights from the native analytics and business intelligence.

The Future of Patient Experience

The development and application of technology in healthcare is creating a new landscape for healthcare professionals. From increased access to medical data to sophisticated predictive analytics and artificial intelligence, these advancements enable healthcare organizations to prioritize improving the patient experience.

These technologies allow providers to shift from traditional, reactive care models to a proactive patient-centered model, with proactive health management, remote patient monitoring, and health notifications being just some of the applications.

Along with greater access to healthcare technologies, patient experience is also becoming an integral part of healthcare policy and reimbursement models. This shift from traditional cost-based reimbursements to value-based models will reward healthcare providers for delivering better patient outcomes. With patient experience becoming a factor for reimbursement, healthcare providers will be motivated to provide an improved service.

The integration of patient experience into healthcare policies is just the beginning of providing better care. Many healthcare organizations are exploring ways to use data to better understand patient needs and create tailored services. Additionally, with the rise of telemedicine, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and robotics, it is foreseeable that digital health will become an invaluable complement to care.

Finally, healthcare systems worldwide are beginning to embrace patient-centered wellness, providing access to mental health services, nutrition plans, and lifestyle coaching to keep their patients healthy, active, and thriving.  

Conclusion

The importance of patient experience is evident from its potential to deliver better health outcomes, improve patient satisfaction, and reduce healthcare costs. To maximize the potential of patient experience, healthcare organizations must utilize vital strategies like effective communication and information sharing, show empathy and compassion, provide convenient healthcare services, and many more.

It’s also essential to evaluate your patient experience strategies using different metrics to ensure effectiveness. 

By now, you know why healthcare organizations need to prioritize patient experience. This prioritization will enable them to provide better care throughout the patient journey, increase patient loyalty, and unlock internal efficiencies that save valuable time and money.

If you’re looking to empower patients and enhance the care your healthcare organization delivers, Phunware provides cutting-edge tech that boosts patient engagement and improves operational efficiency.

Contact Phunware to start revolutionizing your healthcare organization with innovative patient experience.

The post The Power of Patient Experience: Enhancing Care and Empowering Patients appeared first on Phunware.

For services, the digital front door is the key that gives you access. It’s revolutionizing how people access the services they need and it’s becoming more essential now that services are transitioning online.

The digital front door is more than access to service alone, it also facilitates other important aspects of services. It enables providers to personalize their services and tailor them to their specific customers. It also allows for more streamlined security protocols to help protect customers’ data. 

In this blog, we’ll delve into the digital front door and how it is changing how consumers access services. We’ll explore the technologies that power these innovative platforms, examine real-world examples of thriving digital front doors, and the prospect of digital front doors and their potential impact on industries worldwide.

The Basics of the Digital Front Door

A digital front door is a virtual entry point that allows users to access a wide range of services and resources from businesses, organizations, or governments through a single, unified platform. This concept has gained significant traction in recent years, as more services are moving online to meet the growing demand for digital access and convenience. 

From healthcare to hospitality, the digital front door is revolutionizing how we interact with the services we rely on every day.

The key elements of a digital front door include:

1. User Experience (UX) – a well-designed user experience is crucial for any digital front door, as it ensures that users can efficiently navigate the platform and access the services they need with ease. This means having a clean, intuitive interface, with clear calls-to-action and seamless navigation.
2. Accessibility – a digital front door should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their technical skills or abilities. This means that the platform should be designed and developed with accessibility in mind, ensuring that it complies with relevant accessibility standards and guidelines.
3. Security and Privacy – as users will be sharing sensitive information through the digital front door, robust security measures and strict privacy policies must be in place to protect user data and maintain trust.
4. Integration – a successful digital front door should feature seamless integration with existing databases, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, or even external APIs.
5. Scalability – as the demand for services continues to grow, digital front doors need to scale to accommodate increased traffic, new features, and additional services. This means having a flexible architecture and infrastructure that can adapt and grow as needed.
6. Customization Options – an effective digital front door should offer personalization and customization options. This will allow your users to tailor the experience to their individual needs. For example, you could allow customers to choose their preferred language, and opt for targeted promotions, and personalized content. Delivering personalized experiences will enable you to better engage with your customers and foster long-lasting relationships.

Benefits of Implementing a Digital Front Door

There are many benefits to implementing a digital front door, which include:

Enhancing Customer Experience and Satisfaction

A digital front door can help to enhance the customer experience by making it easier for them to access the information and services they need. For example, a digital front door can allow healthcare patients to schedule appointments online, view their medical records, and communicate with their doctors through secure messaging. This can lead to reduced wait times, improved communication, and increased patient satisfaction.

A digital front door can help to enhance the customer experience by making it easier for them to access the information and services they need. For example, a digital front door can integrate with EHR (Electronic Health Record) systems to enable patients to manage appointments online, view their medical records, pay bills, and communicate with physicians and healthcare professionals through secure messaging. This can lead to reduced wait times, improved communication, and increased patient satisfaction.

Additionally, a digital front door can be used to provide wayfinding and location-based services to help users find their way around a facility and to locate specific services or departments.

Streamlining Access to Services

With a digital front door, customers can access a range of services through a single online platform. Gone are the days of confusing phone menus, long waiting times, and trips to different departments. The digital front door provides a seamless and intuitive experience, allowing customers to find the information with a few clicks.

Improving Efficiency

Organizations can also benefit from a digital front door if they leverage automation and digitization of processes. Automation improves an organization’s efficiency and scalability thereby reducing costs.

Case Studies of Successful Digital Front Doors

Case Study 1: Atlantis Paradise Island Resort

An outstanding case study is how Phunware’s tech helped Atlantis Paradise Island to provide guests with convenient services with an innovative digital front door. The solution enabled guests to discover and book unique vacation experiences, access interactive self-guided tours, and access real-time navigation across the resort.

Case Study 2: Virginia Hospital Center

Another interesting case study of a successful digital front door implementation is Phunware’s powerful healthcare solution for Virginia Hospital Center (VHC). 

VHC’s digital front door enabled patients to schedule both virtual and physical appointments, manage prescriptions, and find a doctor. The digital front door also integrates with MyChart, which allows patients to view information on their vital signs in real-time along with lab results, medications, and medical procedures.

Implementing a Digital Front Door Strategy

To launch a digital front door, we recommend you start by assessing your organization’s unique needs and goals. This involves evaluating your current service delivery methods, identifying gaps and inefficiencies, and understanding your customers’ expectations.

Having this clear picture of where your organization stands can help you better determine which features and functionalities your digital front door should include to address these needs and align with your overall business objectives.

Once you’ve identified your organization’s needs and goals, then you can start creating a detailed roadmap outlining the implementation process. This should include milestones, timelines, and resources required to bring your digital front door vision to life. A well-defined roadmap can help ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page and that you’re progressing as planned. 

Overcoming Challenges

Implementing a digital front door strategy often comes with challenges. For technology teams, the obstacles often include concerns about deployment timelines and internal investment from staff. For finance teams, you often need to justify the ROI on the investment. 

At Phunware we pride ourselves on needing minimal time from internal IT teams and we provide ROI analysis for all of our prospects to win over their internal teams.

Digital Front Door Technologies and Solutions

The core technologies that make up digital front doors include Software Development Kits (SDKs), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), cloud computing, responsive mobile apps, and web development. Two or more of these technologies are often combined to build digital front doors. The three essential solutions of a digital front door include identity verification, authentication, and account optimization.

Identity verification solutions for example in EHR systems verify users’ digital identities, helping detect and prevent fraudulent activities. Authentication technologies are used to authenticate users, granting them access to digital services. Account optimization solutions allow businesses to tailor their customer service for a particular customer, creating a more personalized experience. 

Ensuring Security and Privacy in the Digital Front Door

One of the most important steps when designing a digital front door system is to establish a strong security policy. This should include measures such as

• Stringent password protection and two-factor authentication (2FA). 
• Preventing data breaches with techniques like privilege systems and strict access control policies. 
• Leveraging encryption to ensure only trusted users with a decryption key can read the data. 
• Implementing a firewall and anti-virus to deter malicious actors from accessing the system.
• Performing regular system reviews to identify potential security flaws. 
• Informing users on how you collect and use their data

Digital Front Doors in Different Industries

Digital Front Door in Healthcare

One industry where the digital front door has made a significant impact is healthcare. With the advent of COVID-19 and the ongoing digital transformation, healthcare providers are leveraging this innovative approach to enhance patient experiences and streamline their processes.

A survey conducted by Accenture found that 21% of Americans surveyed are willing to pay for digital health services. The survey also found that access to healthcare has improved for 26% of the respondents.

From telemedicine to appointment scheduling and remote patient monitoring, the digital front door is reshaping the healthcare experience. For example, instead of having a paper-based or phone-based system, healthcare organizations are now able to offer integrative scheduling, tracking, and payment systems. This helps to reduce administrative burdens while ensuring that healthcare organizations can meet the needs of their users.

Remote patient monitoring has also made it possible for activities such as vital signs monitoring, remote physiological monitoring, and mobile laboratory monitoring. These features enable patients to be monitored even when they are not physically present in the clinic. This helps to reduce the need for face-to-face visits, while also promoting improved access to care.

Digital front doors are not limited to remote services; they also play a crucial role in managing the entire patient journey, even when they visit a physical healthcare facility. From navigating to the facility, finding parking, and onsite wayfinding, digital front doors can guide patients every step of the way, ensuring a seamless experience.

With digital front doors, healthcare facilities can now offer mobile check-in options, allowing patients to check in for appointments using their smartphones. This reduces wait times and administrative burdens while providing patients with a convenient and efficient way to access services.

Digital front doors can also help healthcare organizations monitor dwell time – the amount of time patients spend in waiting areas or exam rooms. By analyzing this data, providers can identify bottlenecks and make improvements to enhance patient satisfaction. Additionally, digital front doors facilitate the distribution of follow-up surveys, enabling healthcare providers to gather valuable feedback and insights for continuous improvement.

Digital Front Door in Hospitality

The hospitality industry is one of the most customer-facing industries, and as such, it is constantly looking for ways to improve the customer experience. Hotels are now leveraging digital front doors to enhance guest experiences and streamline operations.

With digital front doors hotels can:

• Provide seamless check-in and check-out experience. Long gone are the days of waiting in queues at the reception desk to check in or out of your accommodation. With digital front doors, guests can now complete these processes through their smartphones or other devices, saving time and reducing stress. 
• Personalize their service and recommendations for individual guests by leveraging the power of data analytics from digital front doors. This personalization can create memorable experiences that keep customers coming back.
• Enhance guest communication with hotel staff and improve service delivery such as housekeeping, and query and issues resolution. This instant communication channel not only improves guest satisfaction but also enables hospitality providers to address concerns proactively and efficiently.
• Become more sustainable and thus save costs. For example, by replacing traditional key cards with digital keys, hotels can reduce plastic waste and save on production costs.

Digital Front Door in Government Services

Governments around the world are switching to digital front doors to transform their services. Digital front doors can help governments to:

• Improve access to services thus, enabling citizens to access services regardless of their location. This is especially important for citizens who live in rural areas or who have difficulty getting to a government office.
• Improve the citizen experience by providing a more convenient and personalized way to access services. Citizens can use digital front doors to find information, apply for benefits and permits, and pay taxes from anywhere.

Digital Front Door in Banking and Finance

In recent years, the emergence of the digital front door has completely changed the customer experience around banking and finance.

Digital front doors enable customers to access banking services from their computers, tablets, and phones. With online access to their bank accounts, customers are now able to manage and track their financial activities within a few clicks.

Digital front doors also give the convenience of logging in to complete tasks opening new accounts, paying bills, transferring money, and managing investments any time of the day.

A digital banking experience report found that about four out of ten customers now have an online bank, and 36% of them check it at least once a day.

Digital banking and investment planning services have especially made it easier for customers to monitor their financial activities. This objective for enhanced customer experience has led to the rise of a growing trend of ‘fintech’ companies that are using digital technologies to deliver innovative financial products and services, such as mobile payments, automated financial advice, and new methods of investing.

Digital Front Door in Education

The digital front door is revolutionizing access to and the delivery of education. From online courses to virtual learning, digital front doors pioneering more accessible learning.

For those of us who grew up going to school five days a week, the idea that education can now be accessed anytime and anywhere is mindboggling. Digital front doors are opening up educational opportunities to far more individuals around the globe than ever before. And from the comfort of school buildings or homes, students are reaping the benefits.

From reducing the cost of attending university to increasing the number of courses available, the introduction of digital front doors in education has been incredibly beneficial. With less time spend commuting and traveling, students now have much more time to focus on their studies. It has also enabled students to access the latest development in their field while saving money on textbooks and other resources.

For educators, the use of digital front doors allows them to offer custom and dynamic content. It also allows for quicker enrollment and feedback by using online forms, surveys, and real-time tracking systems. This helps educators stay connected with their students, to keep the students on track with their studies.

Measuring Success and ROI of a Digital Front Door

A well-designed and optimized digital front door will not only drive cost savings, but also improve customer satisfaction, reduce operating expenses, and lead to more efficient public services. 

Some useful metrics for measuring the value generated and return on investment (ROI) of a digital front door include:

1. User experience: This metric indicates customer satisfaction with the overall user experience. It includes assessing how easily customers can find information, complete tasks, and access services and other forms of support. 

To measure user experience effectively, consider incorporating various indicators that can provide insights into aspects such as customer acquisition rates, customer satisfaction, and most importantly, customer service quality and efficiency.

2. Cost savings: This metric indicates the cost savings of using a digital front door over traditional service methods. To measure the cost savings associated with your digital front door, you can check for the reduction in required physical space and improvement in staff and operational efficiency.

To ensure you are getting the most out of your digital front door, it is important to regularly measure and review all these metrics. Doing this will help you understand what is working and what isn’t, and provide you with insights on how to improve the effectiveness of your digital front door.

Conclusion

Digital front doors are transforming how businesses interact with their customers and service delivery to users across different industries. With features such as solid user experience, accessibility, security and privacy, integration, scalability, and customization- digital front doors have become essential for businesses looking to stay competitive in today’s digitally connected world. 

Digital front doors are proving revolutionary across various industries, such as healthcare, hospitality, government, banking and finance, and education, bringing users the convenience, cost savings, and personalized service they desire. As digital transformation continues, the power of the digital front door will only increase, driving further innovation and allowing companies to provide an even greater level of service to their customers.

At Phunware, we understand the importance of digital front doors for businesses of all types, thus we provide you with the solutions you need to succeed. Whether you’re looking to attract new customers with cutting-edge digital front doors or need to offer more convenience for your existing customers, Phunware’s comprehensive digital front door solution can deliver the technology you need.

Chat with us today to discover how we can help you transform service delivery!

The post The Digital Front Door: Revolutionizing Access to Services appeared first on Phunware.

“Smart hospitals are those that optimize, redesign or build new clinical processes, management systems and potentially even infrastructure enabled by underlying digitized networking of interconnected assets to provide a valuable service or insight, which was not possible or available earlier to achieve better patient care, experience and operational efficiency.”
–Frost & Sullivan, Future of Smart Hospitals

Recently, Frost & Sullivan published research demonstrating how digital transformation in hospitals will be increasingly mobile-first. Mobile technology exists at the intersection of physical and digital, moving through hospital corridors with patients, visitors, caregivers and medical devices. In such a highly fluid and ever-changing environment, mobility unleashes greater flexibility, productivity and efficiency.

How Hospitals Can Build a Smarter Mobile Strategy

Digital transformation is rarely achieved in a single step. Hospitals can start moving toward a mobile-first future by addressing achievable wins today while laying a solid foundation and single point of integration for future use cases.

From a technology point of view, hospitals need an adaptable mobile platform that can work with a variety of hardware partners and configurations—especially those of their existing wireless infrastructure. A location-enabled hardware infrastructure (be it Wi-Fi, physical or virtual Bluetooth beacons or even cutting-edge smart LED lighting) is the key to being able to create contextually relevant mobile experiences and effective workflow optimizations.

Learn more by watching our on-demand webinar: Mobile at the Intersection of Hardware and Software.

WATCH THE WEBINAR

From a strategic perspective, a patient / visitor wayfinding app is the logical first use case for testing the power of location-enabled mobile engagement. Wayfinding issues are common to nearly all hospitals (who hasn’t been lost in a maze of corridors?), and a mobile app offers a relatively easy and ideal solution. As users begin interacting with the hospital’s mobile platform, they start to generate a wealth of contextual mobile data. This mobile data can be captured and analyzed to yield operational insights, such as where traffic patterns could be optimized and continuously improve the patient experience.

Want to know how wayfinding can benefit your facility? Download our eBook to learn about the importance of a smart and multi-formatted wayfinding solution.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

Expanding Use Cases and Value through the Mobile App Lifecycle

Moving through the mobile app lifecycle, we always come back to Phase 1: Strategy. The same mobile platform and location technologies that enable wayfinding can be leveraged for additional use cases. By building upon a scalable mobile platform, hospitals can start to expand mobile’s impact in multiple directions:

1. Patient / visitor engagement: Appointment reminders, parking service integrations, concierge services such as nearby hotel/restaurant information, etc.
2. Hospital process automation and workflow optimization: Express check-in, patient / physician dwell time reporting, automatic patient status updates, etc.
3. Equipment, personnel and asset tracking: Real-time location systems (RTLS)

Selecting the next use case(s) to implement will depend on each hospital’s unique goals, infrastructure, budget and timeline. With each new use case, more valuable contextual data can be harnessed to keep improving patient engagement as well as hospital operations. In this way, the mobile app lifecycle is like a spiral—expanding outward in opportunities as well as value over time.

Tomorrow’s Smart Hospital Starts Now

Frost & Sullivan’s report found that by 2025, hospitals worldwide are poised to spend billions on remote patient monitoring, patient flow solutions and mobile asset tracking. A robust mobile solution like we’ve outlined above could help trim that expense through efficiencies of scale and strategic leverage of the mobile app lifecycle—but only if savvy hospital decision-makers get started soon.

For more information about how mobile act as the hub of digital transformation in healthcare, come see us at HIMSS 2018! We’ll be on-site in the Intelligent Health Pavilion at booth #11657 and I’ll be giving a presentation at the Leadership theatre diving into details about building a mobile strategy on 3/6 at 12PM.

BOOK A MEETING

The post Tomorrow’s “Smart Hospital” Needs a Smarter Mobile Strategy Today appeared first on Phunware.

Recently, I was privileged to co-host a webinar called Using New Mobile Technologies to Enhance Patient Experience alongside industry leaders from Mist Systems, Mission Health System, Houston Methodist and HIMSS Media. We talked about untapped potential in the healthcare industry, where it’s no secret that indoor location technology has not even scratched the surface of all of its potentially transformative use cases. Let’s explore what’s getting in the way, and what the solution hospitals really need actually looks like.

Location Tech in Healthcare: The Big Picture’s Been Just Out of Reach

There are so many tantalizing location tech use cases for the healthcare industry—wayfinding, condition monitoring, equipment and patient tracking, workflow optimization, appointment reminders, patient engagement and more. But a variety of factors have prevented hospitals from realizing the full benefits of this technology.

• Hardware limitations: Health systems have tried many different hardware approaches, but none have achieved widespread adoption. Wi-Fi-based systems don’t always deliver the necessary accuracy, physical beacons require installation and ongoing maintenance, and any wayfinding solution that doesn’t leverage Wi-Fi or low energy Bluetooth (BLE) requires purchasing and deploying additional tags.
• Software limitations: Many forward-thinking organizations have deployed point solutions for wayfinding and asset tracking, only to end up frustrated. These point solutions suffer from limited functionality, lack of interoperability (barriers to integration), hardware compatibility limitations and a slew of other issues.
• Budget limitations: Many health systems have large investments in technology infrastructure (Wi-Fi, BLE, etc.), only to find that each new use case requires bolting on yet another costly single-use solution. They need a flexible mobile solution that can work with multiple hardware providers, integrate with other software as necessary and provide a platform to support future, sometimes unforeseen, use cases.

The Solution? Bringing Hardware and Software Together on Mobile

For hospitals, a flexible, future-proof mobile solution requires a complex interplay of hardware, software and humans. The ideal solution consists of:

• A scalable front-end hardware stack capable of generating extremely accurate location data for equipment, patients and staff.
• A flexible software back end that can fuse location data from any hardware provider and render on the map for the app user.
• The ability to integrate with hospital systems such as appointment scheduling, EMR/EHR management and others to meet the full spectrum of patient, visitor and business needs.

Up to this point, it has been very difficult for hospitals to find a single solution that addresses all three legs of this proverbial stool. Thankfully, technology advancements like Mist’s virtual beacon solution, announced last year, are beginning to break the ice. (Disclaimer: both Phunware and Mist are Cisco partners. Bonus: integration with existing Cisco infrastructure is seamless.)

In the webinar I mentioned above, I got to talk with Houston Methodist and Mission Health about how they’re using location technology today and their vision for the future with virtual BLE. Download the recording to hear their stories and get a closer look at the details of Mist’s technology and the ways Phunware’s platform can make the most of it in the healthcare space.

DOWNLOAD THE WEBINAR RECORDING

If you are looking for a scalable mobile strategy for the patient-centered hospital of the future, check out this on-demand webinar to learn how to do it at your facility.

GET THE ON-DEMAND WEBINAR

The post Untapped Potential: Hardware / Software Solutions in Healthcare appeared first on Phunware.

Each Mist wireless access point includes an array of Virtual Bluetooth Low Energy (vBLE) beacons that give it hyperlocation capabilities. Because the access points are managed and enabled by the Mist Cloud, they have significant advantages over traditional battery-powered beacons. For companies looking to set up a new location infrastructure, Mist delivers the benefits of both Wi-Fi and BLE. Those with an existing Wi-Fi network can still use Mist’s vBLE devices to efficiently add location capabilities.

Why are virtual beacons exciting?

There are myriad location technologies, as we’ve explored before. Beacons are especially good for indoor short-range applications, such as indoor navigation and in-store proximity marketing. Instead of installing multiple small physical beacon devices, Mist’s virtualized solution enables businesses to create and “install” multiple beacon zones within any given floorplan using far fewer physical devices. And those devices can be managed and even repositioned with a few mouse clicks.

Ultimately, this technology makes beacon-enabled location services much more flexible, manageable and cost-effective, which means they’re a more viable option for more businesses and organizations.

Virtual beacons and the user experience

Combined with next-generation mobile apps (like the ones we build here at Phunware), virtual beacons will enable more businesses to take greater advantage of location and context. Instead of being limited to a beacon at the front door, for example, a store could implement multiple beacon zones to deliver context-appropriate messages and gather behavioral data via their customer mobile app. The store marketing team could even move those beacon zones around as seasonality and customer traffic patterns dictate.

I can see opportunities for virtual beacons across all kinds of industries, from healthcare to retail to airports, entertainment venues, museums, multi-unit residential properties and many more. For example, the next time I go to a convention like Cisco Live!, the Mist solution could be used to log me in to the conference’s wireless network, allow me to download the event app and prompt me to stop by the registration table (with turn-by-turn navigation).

There’s a great story about how Mist’s founders got their inspiration. As Julie Bort reported in Business Insider, CEO Sujai Hajela’s daughter wished there was a way for networks to “simply put information about wherever she was at her fingertips.” With virtual beacons, brands can not only make contextually-relevant information available, but create a contextually-relevant experience.

The post News from Cisco Live and Mist Systems: Virtual Beacons Are Here! appeared first on Phunware.

Then there’s the beleaguered nursing and support staff, struggling to balance patient needs with physician requests. And of course, administration—the quiet heroes and heroines behind the scenes, keeping everything up and running.

There’s no discounting the importance of the patient experience to a hospital’s success. Luckily, one of the smartest ways to improve the patient experience also has a huge upside for staff and volunteers. Hospital mobile apps offer a number of advantages for the entire facility. Let’s take a closer look.

Learn more in our on-demand webinar: “Using New Technologies to Enhance Patient Satisfaction”

GET THE ON-DEMAND WEBINAR

Reduced strain on information desk and volunteers

With a branded hospital app, patients can have a wealth of important information, right in their pockets. App users can tap and swipe through physician and department directories, then tap to call directly. They can use built-in wayfinding to find their destinations easily. When patients and visitors are empowered to take care of their own needs, they require a lot less direct assistance—and they’re likely to be a lot less stressed.

Streamlined patient and visitor flow

With blue dot indoor navigation and turn-by-turn guidance, app users can confidently make their way through the halls to their destinations. This helps minimize congestion—particularly around decision-making points such as lobbies, elevators and junctions between multiple buildings or wings. Less congestion means staff members can be more efficient as they transport patients and needed equipment. (Plus, improved wayfinding means a corresponding reduction in the amount of directional questions staff must stop and answer in the midst of their other duties.)

Learn more in our eBook: “Found: A Flexible Solution for Hospital Wayfinding and Asset Tracking”

GET THE eBOOK

More efficient patient and visitor communications

Hospital mobile apps represent a powerful and easy-to-use messaging platform for administrative and marketing staff. Predefined notifications and alerts can be sent directly to the lock screen on each app user’s smartphone—and these notifications must be interacted with to be dismissed, helping to guarantee your message is received.

When combined with location-based technologies, the app-as-messaging-platform becomes even more powerful and efficient. For example, marketing can use a beacon-and-app system to send information about bouquet specials whenever an app user passes the hospital florist—or to remind users that the coffee shop is closing in five minutes. Through integrations with the hospital scheduling system, app-based messaging can also be used for appointment reminders that are impossible to ignore.

These types of messaging campaigns are easy to create and manage, using powerful back-end tools that break everything down into just a few clicks.

Fewer late and missed appointments

With personalized wayfinding, app users will find it much easier to make their appointments on time. Appointment reminders can help users confirm or reschedule with just a few taps. While some people will always run late or miss their appointments, hospital mobile apps help reduce the amount of schedule juggling that office staff has to do. And when patients arrive on time and more relaxed for their appointments, office staff is freer to focus on other mission-critical tasks.

Ultimately, a good hospital mobile app can have a positive ripple effect throughout the facility—from staff and volunteers to patients and visitors.

For tips on getting internal buy-in for your hospital app project, check out Chapter 4 of our Hospital App Launch Guide eBook. Staff and volunteers can be your biggest app evangelists, so it’s a smart idea to help them understand how your initiative will make their lives easier and better, even as it improves the patient experience.

Download the eBook

The post Help for the Helpers: How Hospital Mobile Apps Benefit Staff and Volunteers appeared first on Phunware.

Now for the not-so-good news: The same study shows that app abandonment rates are nearly 20% and have been in that ballpark for years. Two in ten users open an app once and then never again. So how do you aim for the high-usage end of the spectrum? How do you keep users coming back again and again?

Consumers expect apps to deliver more and more value over time. And smartphone capabilities just keep going up. This means that existing hospital mobile apps need to continue to evolve their feature sets to meet patient and consumer expectations. Luckily, upgrading your app with the latest mobile features is much easier than developing a new app from scratch—thanks to our friend, the SDK.

SDKs add advanced features to your app, PDQ.

“SDK” is short for “software development kit.” It refers to a set of pre-written code, documentation and programming tools that developers can use to create new software applications or enhancing existing apps. (And “PDQ” is short for “pretty darn quick,” if you didn’t already know.)

Phunware platform modules offers multiple mobile SDKs, and because they’re essentially plug-and-play, they save a lot of development time and hassle. Brands can use Phunware’s platform modules whether Phunware built their original app or not.

The following modules offer the most logical value for hospital apps:

Mapping, Navigation and Wayfinding for Hospital Apps

Turn your app into a personal digital guide from your patients’ home or office directly to your facility, to the closest parking lot, then through the corridors and right to their ultimate destination. Your facility map can even be customized with points of interest, such as your pharmacy, billing department or gift shop. Mapping, Navigation, and Wayfinding is the big kahuna for hospitals, as it alleviates one of patients’ top frustrations and dramatically improves the patient experience. See how Dignity Health is using a mobile solution to improve patient wayfinding and experience.

DOWNLOAD SNAPSHOT

Mobile Engagement for Hospital Apps

In a hospital app, this module is all about improving engagement to make patients and visitors feel more welcome and respected. By leveraging location triggers, your app can send specific messages and notifications to users—such as a welcome greeting when they enter the building, or information about the daily specials when they near the cafeteria. Our user-friendly console makes it easy for your patient services team to build out a messaging plan that makes sense for your patient population.

Analytics and Business Intelligence

Phunware’s analytics platform module helps you understand who’s using your app, which parts of your app they view most, how frequently they use your app and more. If you’re also using our wayfinding module, you can see specifics about how users move throughout your hospital—such as seeing the most popular POI and routes chosen. All of these insights can help you deliver more relevant content, understand your patients and visitors better and make more informed decisions.

As smartphones become smarter, the most successful mobile apps will continue to evolve to take advantage of their new capabilities. Advanced features serve as differentiators for your hospital, and also keep users coming back to your app for a more and more useful experience. Having a leading-edge mobile app helps position your hospital as an innovative organization that puts the patient experience first.

Want to learn more about using mobile to benefit both patients and your facility? Our eBook, Where Do We Go From Here?, covers all that and more.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

The post New Features for Existing Hospital Apps: How to Stay Ahead of the Pack appeared first on Phunware.

Let’s review the content required for most hospital apps. Generally, this information is gathered by your facility’s marketing team and provided to your app development partner.

Who Are You? Informational Content

Fundamentally, your app needs to tell patients and visitors about your hospital, describe its specific departments and provide details about the physicians who work there. In Phunware’s apps for hospitals (the FrenchWay app for Dignity Health’s French Hospital Medical Center is pictured below), this content appears on the About screen and within department and physician directories.

About Screen

• Hospital photo and/or logo
• Short descriptor paragraph (should fit within one smartphone screen—you can probably edit down what is on your website)
• “Tap-to-call” link

Physician and Department Directories

• Images (if applicable)
• Brief descriptor
• Contact information

How Do I Get There? Directional Content

Your app will need to guide users around the hospital in the physical world. Maps and wayfinding assets are the most critical element—because accurate navigation is the most valuable feature in a hospital app.

Maps

• Comprehensive and up-to-date maps of each floor and building in the facility that show accurate hallway routes and doors to the rooms
• Text descriptors for each floor (optional)

Point-to-Point Navigation

• Site map showing all buildings and parking
• Building floor plans with halls and doorways accurately marked
• Details and descriptions about key points of interest (POIs)
  • Entrances
  • Departments
  • Pharmacy
  • Cafeteria(s)
  • Gift shop(s)
  • Public restrooms
  • Elevators and stairs
  • Ramps and other accessible features
  • On-site and off-site parking lots

See how Dignity Health is using a mobile solution to improve patient wayfinding and experience.
DOWNLOAD THE SNAPSHOT

What Can You Teach Me? Value-Added Content

Many hospitals choose to enhance their apps with health-related information that is relevant to the population they serve—think “Pregnancy Timeline” or “Tips for Managing Diabetes.” You can add links in some areas of your hospital app to drive users to content on your website. There are also several options for third-party content syndication.

How Can I Get Your App? Information for The Apple App Store and Google Play

Describing your app in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store is an important part of app launch. When a patient or visitor searches for your app, you will want it to be paired with a good description and some key screen shots to encourage downloads. Plus, app descriptions are now searchable, so you’ll want to utilize primary keywords for maximum visibility.

Apple App Store and Google Play content

• App Icon
• Title (your app name + your hospital name)
• Text description (use keywords)
• Screenshots

Content Is (Almost) Everything.

Complete, easy-to-understand content within your app will make it a valuable tool for your users and keep them coming back to it, making them more engaged and connected with your hospital. Now that Apple has made app content searchable in iOS 9, your app content serves a marketing role as well. Properly indexed for iOS 9 and with Google app indexing enabled, your app content can show up in search results. This means that you will want to keep your content as relevant, compelling and current as possible.

I hope this overview has been helpful. As you discuss the scope of your app project, your development partner is the true guru about asset needs, mapping formats, naming conventions and launch criteria. Go in with an open mind and a good checklist, and you will surely be successful!

Want to learn more? Our comprehensive hospital app launch guide tells you everything you need to know about content gathering—and a lot more!

DOWNLOAD THE APP LAUNCH GUIDE

The post Launching your Hospital App: Finding Content Zen appeared first on Phunware.

As you’re looking for big and small ways to improve the hospital experience for patients and visitors, don’t overlook the power of a branded mobile app. Here are seven unexpected ways your facility can use an app to help patients and visitors feel more positive.

1. Solve two key problems: “I don’t know how to get there” and “I don’t know where to park.”

Sure, patients and visitors can enter the hospital address into the map/navigation app on their smartphones. But that only gets them to the general area. By incorporating navigation into your mobile app, you can guide patients and visitors on a direct path from their starting location to the most convenient parking lot and right into the correct entrance—smoothly, confidently and comfortably.

2. Reduce the confusion involved in getting around the hospital—and make it personal.

The same in-app navigation technology that guides patients to your door can also help them navigate through the hospital itself. Once the patient or visitor enters your hospital, the app view can shift to a map of your facility, with the familiar blue dot guiding the user directly to the appropriate office, clinic, waiting room or patient room. How much more comfortable would patients and visitors feel with turn-by-turn directions, as if a guiding friend were walking alongside them, making sure they arrived stress-free and on time?

This same navigation can help patients and visitors find your pharmacy or lab, if needed, or the gift shop, coffee shop, chapel, cafeteria…all without having to “bother” any of your staff. The app can stay current with any changes to the hospital environment, such as relocated offices, elevator repairs, remodeling detours, etc. And when it’s time to head out, your app can guide them back to the parking lot and to their next destinations.

Download our eBook to learn more about just how costly poor wayfinding can be for your facility and the best options for location-powered solutions in multiple formats.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

3. Let patients and visitors know that you care.

A personalized “Welcome!” message on a user’s smartphone lock screen. A simple reminder to fill any necessary prescriptions. A follow-up message, just to let a patient know you care about his or her continued well-being. With back-end integrations, you can even send automatic prescription or appointment reminders to help ensure compliance with treatment programs. These types of messages can be automated where appropriate, and seamlessly delivered via push notifications. Small touchpoints like this can make a real difference in how patients and visitors feel about your facility.

4. Provide valuable information for patients and visitors how, when, and where they want it.

At this point, most people have their smartphones with them wherever they go. With a branded mobile app, you can put important hospital- and health-related information right in people’s pockets. It’s no longer enough to have a website. According to the latest comScore report, mobile app usage has grown 99% in the past two years and Americans now spend more than two hours per day using smartphone apps. Millennials spend more than three hours a day.

5. Make waiting time more productive—or at least less boring.

By incorporating syndicated content into your app, you can give patients and visitors something helpful, interesting, and/or entertaining to do while waiting. Third-party providers offer health-related quizzes, videos, games, articles and more, and some of this content may even be free to use. That said, it’s important to make sure the content in your app is relevant for your patient population. If they’re going to use your app, they must feel that it’s worth their time and attention.

6. Help people connect more easily with hospital billing, physicians, scheduling, etc.

Your hospital app can provide patients and visitors a direct path to any point of contact. Built-in directories can be organized by department as well as alphabetically, with convenient “click to call” and/or “click to email” buttons. The fewer hassles people encounter as they engage with your facility, the calmer and more positive they will feel.

7. Learn more about your patients and visitors—and about their hospital experiences.

Standardized patient surveys are now coded into Medicare reimbursement law. But there’s a lot more we can learn from patients and visitors, especially if we think outside the box.

As hospital quality and safety advocate Leah Binder recently stated in The Wall Street Journal, “We are also seeing innovative ways to solicit patient feedback, such as cellphone surveys and social media. Hospitals and health plans are using this data systematically to track consumer comment as a way to gauge overall quality of care.” At least one hospital, Boston Children’s, has explored the use of Twitter data analysis to get a more timely handle on what patients think, feel and say about their hospital experiences. By incorporating a carefully designed patient survey form into your app, you can give patients a personalized platform to share their thoughts with you. Never underestimate the power of a listening ear.

In addition, an app can reveal interesting data about patient and visitor behavior. You can see how long people engage with your app, how many people engage with offers, which content they find most compelling, etc. With indoor wayfinding enabled, you can learn about how people move within your hospital. For example, understanding how long it takes for patients to progress along a certain route can help you uncover signage issues or other obstacles.

As you can see, a mobile app for your hospital is more than just a smartphone-optimized brochure. By leveraging the navigation and communication capabilities built into your patients’ smartphones, you can connect with them in unprecedented ways. You can use technology to make them feel more calm, respected and welcome.

To learn more unexpected ways a mobile app can improve hospital operations and the patient experience, download our eBook: The Way You Want: How Multi-Format Digital Wayfinding Empowers Patients and Visitors.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

The post 7 New Ways to Make Patients Feel Calm, Respected and Welcome appeared first on Phunware.

Imagine you’re taking your elderly mom to the hospital for some tests. She’s anxious about the whole idea. She doesn’t feel great, and her mobility is limited. You’re worried because Mom’s worried, and also because it’s your responsibility to make sure she gets to her appointment safely and on time.

You can find the hospital, but then what? Where do you park? How can you figure out the closest parking lot to where Mom’s appointment is? You’re not going to the main building, so where’s the right entrance? Are you going to have to drive in circles to find a parking lot, then wander around trying to find the building entrance? Now you’re running a little late, and you can’t really hurry Mom—she’s doing the best she can with her cane—but you don’t want to drop her off on the curb alone while you park, either. Why does a simple trip to the hospital have to be such an ordeal?

I’m stressed out just writing that story, but it highlights a crucial and often-overlooked part of the patient journey.

Finding close parking and the right entrance is a big factor in how patients and visitors feel.

As customer service and patient experience consultant Micah Solomon wrote on the Forbes magazine blog, “The first and last moments of a customer interaction are what a customer is likely to hold in memory as the permanent “snapshot” that encompasses the whole event.”

Learn more in The Way You Want: how Multi-Format Digital Wayfinding Empowers Patients and Visitors.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

How’d We Get Here? Hospital Wayfinding (and Waylosing)

Hospital parking is increasingly challenged by urbanization. There’s simply less empty space available for parking expansions as hospitals grow. So the closest parking for a particular appointment might not be readily apparent to the arriving patient—it might be down the street and around the corner. Add in the fact that hospitals now offer many more services on an outpatient basis, and you’ve got a lot more people coming and going, needing to use whatever parking is available.

As hospitals expand and repurpose buildings, entrances shift around. Redesigns might move the front entrance of a building entirely. There may be multiple “front doors” to a building. Patients often just “pick a door, any door” and hope they can figure out where to go next.

This is precisely where a great hospital app can help.

With built-in navigation and wayfinding, patients can be personally guided to the closest parking lot for their appointments and—crucially—given a direct path from their cars, right to the most convenient entrance. Once they’re indoors, the blue dot navigation takes over and guides them on to their ultimate destinations.

So, in our example above, you can be guided at every turn, with personalized notifications to keep you on track. You don’t have to drive in circles—the navigation takes you directly to the closest parking lot without a worry. Then the app guides you and Mom on the shortest path to the correct entrance, alleviating all of that pressure and anxiety. You arrive on time for Mom’s appointment, both of you calm and able to focus on what the doctor has to say. That’s much better.

Parking lots and entrances can either be obstacles or welcome mats.

Space and budgets being what they are, most facilities can’t undertake a complete overhaul of their parking and entrances. By launching a hospital mobile app with wayfinding and navigation—or adding these capabilities to an existing app—any parking and entrance situation can be workable and less stressful for patients.

So, what now? Are your parking lots and entrances getting in the way? Where do we go from here? Download our eBook, Where Do We Go From Here, to learn how to reduce missed appointments and increase patient satisfaction.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

The post Patient Experience: Are You Overlooking a Crucial Part of the Patient Journey? appeared first on Phunware.

Here’s a quick checklist of the groups and departments that are typically involved, along with their primary responsibilities:

Marketing

This team is primarily responsible for providing all content for your app to the app developers. (Also referred to as “assets,” the different pieces of content required for your app might include text, images, brand-approved colors, directory information, maps, etc.) Marketing will work with Patient Experience and your development team to define the user experience for your app. This team is also responsible for ensuring brand standards and promoting your new app, both internally and externally.

Patient Experience

This department—or those who fill this role—will be the voice of patients and visitors in the development process. As such, they will play a big part in defining the user experience for your app. Post-launch, Patient Experience is usually responsible for gathering ongoing feedback from patients and visitors.

Learn more in this on-demand webinar: Using New Technologies to Enhance Patient Satisfaction

WATCH THE ON-DEMAND WEBINAR

Volunteers

Because they are often the first people to meet and engage with patients and visitors, volunteers are critically important to the success of your app. It’ll be their job to share the app with patients and visitors, encourage downloads, answer questions and help get new users up to speed.

IT, Innovation Lab and/or Product Teams

If it involves technology in some way, you can bet the tech team is going to want to be involved. If you’re working with a third-party developer, most of the technical tasks are handled for you. But your technology teams may be needed to help coordinate any necessary integrations with existing systems (such as scheduling, etc.). You may also want their help to assist with QA and testing just before launch.

Facilities

If you have a hospital wayfinding app, you’ll need help from Facilities to confirm the content and provide ongoing updates about construction, facility closures, etc.

Learn more in this eBook: Your Hospital Wayfinding App Launch Guide: Everything You Need to Be Successful

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

Finance

Since you’re already in the development process, Finance should have already signed off on the project. However, the dev process may reveal more features your hospital would like to include before launch. In that case, you’ll need Finance to provide approvals and any additional funding required.

Development

Very few hospitals or hospital systems have the in-house resources to develop their own apps, so most likely you’ll be working with a third party like Phunware. Your development partner will be responsible for guiding you through the process, establishing a schedule and checkpoints along the way, developing your app to functional and brand standards, and helping you make the most of your app through launch day and beyond.

Your Hospital Wayfinding App Champion

Finally, every app launch team needs a champion—a point person who’s responsible for generating internal excitement about your app, keeping teams up-to-date, and tracking your progress. This person will be part cheerleader, part coach, part project manager, and all-important to your team.

Believe it or not, launching a mobile app for your hospital can be fun and exciting! With a little organization and the right development partner, you can sail smoothly through the process. Want to learn more about successfully launching an app for your hospital? Check out our Hospital App Launch eBook for tips on planning for launch day, marketing your app internally and externally, training staff and volunteers to use your app and more!

Download the App Launch eBook

The post Launching Your Hospital Wayfinding App: First, Build Your Team appeared first on Phunware.

In the early days of any app development process, it’s a good idea to have a kickoff call (or preferably a face-to-face meeting) with your internal launch team and your third-party developer. From our experience, these kickoffs are invaluable for setting the tone and getting everybody on the same page.

Here are the top five items that should be on your hospital wayfinding app kickoff agenda.

1. Review the stated objectives for your app.

This helps remind everybody of what’s most important. While various stakeholders might have wish-list items or secondary goals, keep the overall team focused on your goals.

Some common objectives we see for hospital mobile apps include:

• Improving wayfinding with internal and external turn-by-turn navigation
• Enhancing patient and visitor engagement and satisfaction
• Helping reduce late and missed appointments
• Helping drive revenue through foodservice and retail
• Establishing a platform for expanding functionality in the future

Learn more in this on-demand webinar: Using New Technologies to Enhance Patient Satisfaction

WATCH THE ON-DEMAND WEBINAR

2. Determine primary points of contact.

To keep things running smoothly, you’ll want clear lines of communication among your internal team as well as with your third-party developer. Internally, your primary contact point is probably a project or implementation manager from the marketing team—although this role is sometimes filled by stakeholders from other departments.

Your development partner should have a dedicated Project Manager assigned to your app, as well as an Account Manager who is responsible for your entire relationship.

3. Review the project management process.

Process, people. It can make the difference between a smooth launch experience and a stressful one. So talk with your development partner about how they will work with your team, which collaboration tools they use, what types of reviews you can expect, what levels of participation they need from hospital stakeholders, etc. Share your team’s preferences as well. Get everything established in the beginning so there’s clear understanding of expectations on both sides.

Learn more in this eBook: Your Hospital App Launch Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Be Successful

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

4. Develop a proposed schedule and “go-live” date.

Development is dependent on content (images of your hospital, text, maps and other assets necessary for your app)—and it’s the hospital’s job to provide it. (For a full list of what kind of content an app developer will expect you to provide, download our Hospital App Launch eBook.) Think about how long it will take your marketing team to gather these items. Most of the time, the development process should take about four to six weeks AFTER all content has been delivered.

5. Set adoption goals and success metrics.

There are many different ways to measure app success, including downloads and usage. Depending on the size of your hospital and the population and demographics you serve, these measurements can and will change. Work with your key stakeholders to develop realistic objectives so you can track your progress throughout the launch process and into long-term usage.

Ready to get started? Download our Hospital Wayfinding App Launch Toolkit today!

Download Wayfinding App Launch Toolkit

The post Launching Your Hospital Wayfinding App: 5 Agenda Items for Your First Meeting appeared first on Phunware.

But we learned a lot from those early days, and the succeeding generations of mobile phones have evolved into ubiquitous devices that are useful in countless ways.

Many first-generation hospital kiosks are kind of like those old mobile phones—a little clunky, hard to situate in a crowded hospital, expensive, and rather limited in functionality. Each kiosk was likely running its own software that had to be updated manually (a pain). Consequently, maps and wayfinding information were often out of date. Multiple kiosks in a facility couldn’t talk to or work with each other. And sadly, these hardworking kiosks were all too often ignored by patients and visitors who didn’t know what to do with them.

But the potential for our friend the hospital kiosk is enormous!

Let’s take a look at Kiosk: The Next Generation.

When a hospital customer works with Phunware to develop a branded mobile app, we can extend that same app for use in a kiosk format. This approach offers a number of next-generation advantages—especially because of Phunware’s powerful, cloud-based software and flexible form factor (tablets or wall-mounted touchscreens).

Lower Cost

A traditional kiosk runs around $5,000. For a hospital with ten kiosks, that’s an investment of $50,000. As an extension of a mobile app deployment, Phunware’s cloud-based kiosk solution can be deployed for as little as $200 each. A ten-tablet solution represents a potential savings of $48,000 initially, and minimal operating costs.

With Phunware, your digital wayfinding solutions will always be in sync—the mobile application and the tablets can be updated easily from the cloud-based Map Editor Portal.

Space-Efficient and Location-Flexible

A Phunware kiosk solution can be deployed on a wall-mounted touchscreen or on a mobile tablet at a fixed location (welcome desk, nurses’ station, etc.). You can even equip volunteers with a roving tablet, so they can serve as personal guides for hospital visitors. And of course, with your branded mobile app, patients and visitors can literally carry your facility information and wayfinding assistance in their pockets—inside the hospital and out.

Familiar Technology and User Experience

As of 2015, almost two-thirds of Americans own smartphones. The user experience with Phunware’s app and kiosk solutions would be very familiar for most patients and visitors. In addition, large-format touchscreens are also gaining traction across the country, as evidenced by the recent rollout of a pilot program using touchscreens for wayfinding and information in the New York subway system. Currently, 140 touchscreens are in place at 28 subway stations, with an average daily ridership of 1.4 million people.

We on the Phunware healthcare team are excited about mobile’s potential to help hospitals, providers, patients and visitors. These next-generation hospital kiosks are simply the next step on a very bright journey. Learn more in our eBook: “The Way You Want: How Multi-Format Digital Wayfinding Empowers Patients and Visitors”

GET THE eBOOK

The post Hospital Kiosk: The Next Generation appeared first on Phunware.

We asked Leslie to test our healthcare mobile app solutions and provide feedback on our FrenchWay app. Her thoughts are below.

Can Smartphones Improve Hospital Visits?

The smartphone in our pocket gives us superpowers. It endows us with access to all of human knowledge and provides constant communication with our loved ones. But can it make an anxiety-ridden visit to a hospital a little easier?

To find out, I test-drove Phunware’s new app for French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, California. French Hospital is a leader in cardiac care on the central coast of California and is part of the Dignity Health system. The fifth-largest network of healthcare facilities in the country, Dignity Health is piloting the app to evaluate a potential rollout to its 39 hospitals in California, Nevada and Arizona.

Known as “FrenchWay,” the app was designed to serve as a personal guide for hospital visitors throughout their entire journey to and from the hospital. Turn-by-turn navigation gets you from any location to the medical center, then indoor wayfinding and navigation guide you right to your chosen destination. The app is available for Android and iOS.

Currently, French Hospital is undergoing massive construction, with renovations to existing facilities and the addition of two new wings. Short-term signs direct to temporary entrances and construction equipment is everywhere. This makes navigating the facility even more difficult.

I decided to simulate a common common trip to the hospital—visiting a loved one. Here’s how everything worked.

My Indoor Wayfinding Experience with FrenchWay

1. I found the hospital wayfinding app easily on the French Hospital website. When I launched the app for the first time, a tutorial showed me how to get turn-by-turn directions from any location to the medical center. It also explained how to use the built-in interactive hospital map to get indoor directions to my final destination.
2. For street directions to the hospital, the app links to your default mapping app (Apple Maps or Google Maps). The trip from my hotel to the hospital was easy—I just followed the audio directions, which were similar to those you get from an in-car or mobile GPS system.
3. When I arrived at French Hospital, the FrenchWay icon appeared on my iPhone lock screen, with a reminder to return to the app to use the indoor interactive map.
4. Since the content on the app can be updated as needed, the app’s map already reflected that the Main Entrance was closed due to construction. I entered the complex at the suggested alternate entrance. From there, I searched on the map for the Med/Surg Nurses’ Station. A blue line appeared on the map, tracing my suggested route.
5. A label stating “Start Here,” was punctuated by the pulsating blue dot—the same “you are here” dot we see on all the most common navigation apps. As I followed the route, the map re-oriented to show me a “heads-up” view, with the top of the map pointed toward my line of sight.
6. When I walked past the cafeteria, a notification popped up with the daily specials. Phunware’s technology allows the hospital staff to add messages that are transmitted through the app to visitors at specific locations.
7. I arrived at the Med/Surg Nurses Station with only a few hesitations along the way and no wrong turns. Success!

New Possibilities with Indoor Positioning

Indoor positioning technology—the ability to locate a smartphone in an environment and provide specific information to it like the “blue dot” or a promotional message—is a relatively young field. Different vendors are pursuing various networking protocols to support their efforts. Phunware apps can use either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi access points to provide “indoor GPS.”

Since indoor wayfinding is new, so is the experience of walking within a building and following a blue dot on a smartphone screen. It took some getting used to, especially at decision points where I needed to glance at the app to orient myself and decide where to go. I believe that the app’s performance can be attributed to the positioning of the beacons and the responsiveness of Phunware’s platform.

A “real” visitor may also make use of FrenchWay’s other features: a directory of departments (with phone numbers), plus links to the hospital’s patient web portal and “find a doctor” referral service.

After spending a few hours at French Hospital and using the app on iPhone and Android devices, I believe Phunware is on the right path toward making our journeys to and within hospitals easier to navigate.

If you’re curious about the FrenchWay app and wayfinding with Phunware, download the recording of my May 13 webinar on The Future of Connected Health. I presented with Marie Garrison, Phunware’s healthcare Product Marketing Manager. We discussed this pilot program, our top 10 takeaways from HIMSS and a lot more.

The post Hospital Wayfinding App in Action: A Test Drive at French Hospital Medical Center appeared first on Phunware.

A “clinical trial” is the easiest and most affordable way to evaluate the potential of mobile wayfinding for your facilities—as Dignity Health is finding out. The fifth-largest health system in the U.S., Dignity Health serves communities in 21 states. Last week, Dignity Health’s French Hospital Medical Center launched a free patient wayfinding app for patients in San Luis Obispo, California. The new app (called FrenchWay) is part of a 90-day pilot program for Dignity Health.

A Mobile App “Clinical Trial” Lets You Test Key Features

The FrenchWay app offers patients and visitors:

• Instant directions from home or office, right to the hospital
• Navigational tools, including an indoor GPS to guide patients within the facility
• Information on French Hospital physicians and department services
• “Find a physician” capabilities
• A link to the patient portal to check appointments and medical history
• Up-to-date news, events, and promotional information—with built-in alerts
• Construction and modernization updates
• Special discounts and promotions at the hospital gift shop and cafeteria

Because each hospital in the Dignity Health system has its own identity, the pilot app is branded as “FrenchWay,” with French Hospital branding overlaid on the Dignity Health app.

Here’s an overview of the app’s functionality from the French Medical Center website (where you can also download and test out the app):

French Hospital Execs See Real Promise in Mobility

According to Alan Iftiniuk, French Hospital President/CEO, “The addition of the FrenchWay app here at French Hospital provides another resource with which we can continue to improve our patient and visitor experience. This app will not only make navigating the hospital easier, it will also ensure our patients and visitors have access to the latest French Hospital news, information on services, and even the newest promotions in our gift shop.”

Developed by Phunware, the FrenchWay pilot program offers a strategic and cost-effective way for Dignity Health to explore mobile wayfinding. Working closely with Phunware’s expert Solutions Architects and Software Engineers, Dignity Health can also optimize the pilot app for eventual rollout across all facilities in the system. Patient and visitor feedback is captured via simple surveys within the app. As Carla Adams, French Hospital COO and Chief Nurse Executive, says: “We definitely have a very savvy community and we feel that this is something that will benefit (it), but we need to know that, we need to validate that, so the feedback we get will be incredibly helpful.”

Interested in Discussing Your Own “Clinical Trial”?

Contact us to set one up.

Check out this video and article from KEYT.com about the Dignity Health Mobile FrenchWay App:

View Full Article On KEYT

The post Intrigued by Mobile Patient Wayfinding? A “Clinical Trial” May Be Your Best Bet appeared first on Phunware.

The answer? New “wayfinding” technology now exists to ensure you cannot only assist patients from their homes to the parking lot, but to the correct waiting room with ease. Wayfinding is defined as knowing where you are in a building or an environment, knowing where your desired location is, and knowing how to get there from your present location. Today, this technology can be delivered simply and easily through the convenience of a mobile application. The power now literally rests in the palm of the patient’s hands.

Here are the Top 3 reasons hospitals and medical facilities should be offering wayfinding through their mobile apps or a companion application:

Anxious Visitors and Patients

Hospitals are already filled with anxious visitors and patients facing potential diagnoses and treatment options. Trying to find their way through complex facilities only exacerbates this anxiety. In most cases, these visitors and patients have never been there before. The last thing they need to worry about is how to get where they need to go without getting lost.

Patients and visitors need to get where they need to go…quickly and without having to focus on confusing signage, maps and color-coding. Wayfinding technology offers a reassuring way to help guide patients and visitors to exactly where they need to be. Plus, it is technology that they are already comfortable using as the majority of U.S. adults regularly rely on GPS navigation on their smartphones.

Lost Appointments

A recent study shows that one of the main reasons patients miss their appointments is because they get lost trying to find their doctor’s office. Often times, the confusion kicks in upon their arrival in the parking lot and worsens as they try to navigate a sprawling medical facility.

Lost appointments mean lost future patients, lost revenue, as well as lost productivity. But even more importantly, lost appointments can potentially result in serious, negative health consequences for patients who may miss out on necessary treatment.

Losing to Competitors

Competition to attract patients has only increased over the years and the recent healthcare reform changes have only magnified this trend. As hospital organizations work harder than ever to build connections within their communities, it is extremely important to consider the entire patient experience from home, to doctor’s office. Ensuring that visitors can navigate a hospital’s campus easily is a huge step toward a positive user experience, which translates to patient loyalty.

Hospital organizations across the country from Rapids City Regional Hospital in South Dakota to the Cleveland Clinic to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are all investing in new wayfinding technology to improve their patients’ and visitors’ experiences.  It is not a matter of “IF” wayfinding delivered through a hospital’s mobile application should happen; it is simply a matter of when…

The post Top 3 Reasons Hospitals Need Wayfinding…Now appeared first on Phunware.