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!

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The Hidden Cost of Lost Directions

It may surprise you to learn that wayfinding challenges are more than a minor inconvenience—they’re a costly affair. Take Emory University’s staggering $200,000 annual loss due to wayfinding inefficiencies as a wake-up call. The story is the same across medical campuses sprawling over city blocks—lost visitors, delayed care, and the inevitable financial leak.

A Labyrinth of Complexity

Imagine a vast complex with nearly 200 beds, multiple floors, and a constant state of flux due to renovations. Now consider that nearly one-third of first-time visitors and a quarter of hospital staff find themselves disoriented in these spaces. Traditional navigation aids falter here, where GPS signals can’t penetrate, and static signs become outdated overnight.

The Digital Compass: A Leap in Wayfinding

The answer to this disarray? A mobile wayfinding solution that offers real-time, on-demand digital navigation. Such technology not only alleviates the need for human direction but also curtails the margin for error, reduces patient and staff anxiety, and secures the revenue that would otherwise be lost to confusion, missed appointments and patients leaving without being seen.

The Phunware Difference

Not all digital navigation tools are created equal. Phunware stands apart, having deployed over 110 million square feet of cutting-edge wayfinding solutions across some of the world’s most complex environments. Phunware’s proprietary platform transitions seamlessly between indoor and outdoor environments and excels with real-time positioning, navigation, and multilingual, ADA-compliant guidance that doesn’t rely on WiFi, ensuring no one—regardless of their physical abilities—is left behind.

Charting a New Path in Healthcare

Phunware is not just navigating the present, but pioneering the future. We envision a world where wayfinding is no longer a source of stress but a gateway to efficient, cost-effective, and safer healthcare experiences. It’s time to transform the way we find our way in healthcare—turning a web of corridors into a clear, navigable path to wellness. Join us as we turn complexity into clarity, guiding you to better care, one tap at a time.

Click here to learn more

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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!

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Listen to the full interview

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“Today we are pleased to share our trailing financial results for the Company, which included a dramatic year-over-year revenue transformation from one-time, non-recurring application transactions revenue to annual and multi-year recurring platform subscriptions and services revenue tied to the licensing and use of our Multiscreen as a Service (MaaS) enterprise cloud platform for mobile,” said Alan S. Knitowski, President, CEO and Co-Founder of Phunware. “More importantly, and specific to the subsequent events and recent operational actions taken to address our go-forward business activities while the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic continues to unfold worldwide, we have announced a $3 million structured debt financing to address our balance sheet and a furlough of 37 Phunware employees to address our cost structure during the existing governmental stay-in-place orders unique to our business facilities and operations in Central Texas, Southern California and Southern Florida.”

Read the full article from Proactive

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“We are living in unprecedented times as the world faces the COVID-19 pandemic, so we are honored and fortunate to have Blythe serve as Chair for Phunware’s Board of Directors,” said Alan S. Knitowski, President, CEO and Co-Founder of Phunware. “Blythe’s proven leadership and experience will be invaluable to helping Phunware navigate the current macro and health environments as we continue to diligently manage cash and drive towards self-sufficiency through operational excellence.”

Read the full article from Proactive

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“We have built a data engine that is capable of managing over a billion active devices and four billion daily transactions, while generating more than 5 terabytes of data each day,” said Randall Crowder, COO of Phunware. “We can leverage our technology to identify and track critical medical assets like ventilators, but we need to act now and we need everyone’s help getting the word out to medical professionals on the frontline so that we can collect the information that we desperately need.”

Read the full article from Proactive

Visit the National Ventilator Registry

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Read the full press release

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“Phunware is honored to have an AVIA Vetted Product, which will allow us to connect with over 25 distinguished health systems who are committed to digital transformation in a mobile-first world,” said Randall Crowder, COO of Phunware. “We look forward to this partnership with AVIA as we continue to offer health systems an enterprise-wide, best-in-class digital front door.”

Read the full article from Proactive

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“The enterprise rollout of this mobile application enabled by our location-based services is another great example of leadership in healthcare innovation and we’re proud to play our part in building a true digital front door,” said Alan S. Knitowski, President, CEO and Co-Founder of Phunware. “Being able to navigate a complex facility easily makes hospital visits less stressful for patients, while being able to reach and inform patients with the push of a button, saving precious time and increasing staff efficiencies.

Read the full article from Proactive

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“Over the past year, we have strengthened our financial position as we approach operating cash flow breakeven and move towards breakeven on an adjusted EBITDA basis,” said Alan S. Knitowski, President, CEO and Co-Founder of Phunware. “To ensure we capitalize on these important milestones, we look forward to working with the team of professionals at Hayden IR to help us target and expand our investor audience and ensure we are communicating effectively with Wall Street.”

Read the full article from Proactive

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The Company also recently released new user activity audiences capabilities to its Multiscreen-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform that allows brands to create custom user segments, calculate approximate audience sizes and create cross-platform campaigns among users.

“Phunware has been delivering everything you need to succeed on mobile for over a decade, so helping brands engage audiences with digital media is a natural core competency for us in a mobile-first world,” said Luan Dang, CTO and Co-Founder of Phunware. “Our data-enriched media allows brands to optimize their marketing spend, while our blockchain-enabled data exchange provides improved transparency to combat ad fraud and ensure both brand and consumer protection alike.”

New customer wins included Samsung, Live Nation, Ticketmaster, House of Blues, AEG, Madison Square Garden, Metrolink, Coast Electric, Census 2020, the University of Pennsylvania and Truthfinder amongst others.

Read the full article from Proactive

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“MaaS provides our customers with a true digital front door for their patients and staffs, either end-to-end as a complete turn-key solution off-the-shelf, or as software components and tools that they can license, incorporate and build on their own through convenient and frictionless Github downloads and a comprehensive learning management system known as the Phunware Phenom Certified Developer Program,” said Alan S. Knitowski, President, CEO and Co-Founder of Phunware. “Missed appointments cost the US healthcare system more than $150 billion every year, so we’re extremely excited to enable such a prominent, globally recognized healthcare organization to better manage their patient and clinician experience across more than 14 million square feet of facilities spread over a 40 block downtown metropolitan area.”

Read the full article from Proactive

The post Phunware Adds Top US Cancer Center as Mobile Digital Front Door Customer appeared first on Phunware.

But what exactly is a digital front door? 

A digital front door is the healthcare organization’s reputation and presence across the web. This includes online reviews, social media, websites and much more. The digital front door will likely be the first interaction with a potential patient, which is why it is essential to treat them as consumers.

Prior to booking an appointment, patients typically conduct research and compare reviews. They not only expect their provider to have an online presence, but they also prefer one that incorporates digital tools throughout their healthcare journey. This begins with appointment scheduling and carries all the way through to accessing test results and ordering prescription refills. 

In a survey conducted by McKinsey & Company, a 70% of the survey respondents preferred digital solutions to standard over-the-phone and in-person solutions for many of their healthcare interactions, including searching for a doctor and paying bills. 

• 79% prefer a digital solution to pay bills
• 73% prefer a digital solution to search for a doctor
• 71% prefer a digital solution to order prescriptions and refills
• 69% prefer a digital solution to check their health information
• 58% prefer email, text or phone appointment reminders
• 53% prefer digital tools to access electronic healthcare records
• 50% prefer video or online doctors visits

When discussing digital tools for healthcare organizations, the importance of mobile is undeniable. According to Pew Research Center, 81% of Americans own a smartphone and a growing majority now use it as their primary means of online access. Even more importantly, for one-in-five Americans, their smartphone is their only means of online access, which underlies the importance of a mobile-friendly presence whether that be an online portal or mobile application.

As patients take control, convenience is the primary factor driving their consumer-centric decision making according to the 2019 Healthcare Consumer Trends Report from NRC Health. Convenience ranks above quality of care, brand reputation and doctor/nurse conduct. This preference has spurred the growth of retail clinics and digital health, including telehealth and mHealth. Today Patients have more options than ever before. 

Here are the benefits of a single digital front door:

• Healthcare organizations can engage with new and existing patients
• Patient experience and satisfaction is improved.
• Patients will have fewer missed appointments.
• Both providers and end users will experience the benefit of existing technology through integration, as well as the elimination of disconnected portals, tools and apps.
• A more streamlined and productive operational process of healthcare systems.
• Increased revenue.

Ready to take action? 

Get Started Today!

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