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Healthcare

The Perfect Patient Engagement Platform Has These 4 Features

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With the rise in healthcare consumerism and a growing emphasis on creating a positive patient experience, healthcare providers are now more in-tune than ever with redefining and optimizing their patient engagement strategies.

Patient engagement platforms are lighting the path toward improved patient engagement and ideal healthcare outcomes. 

But what makes one patient engagement platform stand out from the rest? The ideal patient engagement platform will offer four particular features your patients and their clinical team need to remain in sync along every step of a patient’s health and wellness journey.

What is a patient engagement platform?

A top-tier patient engagement platform is a digital software application that healthcare facilities use to disseminate patient-centric educational materials, encourage ongoing collaborative communication and streamline healthcare processes.

Often powered by user-friendly technology, a patient engagement platform can aid clinical practitioners in empowering their patients. Helping patients assume a proactive role in their healthcare decisions can drive positive health outcomes. 

What are the benefits of a patient engagement platform?

The benefits of a patient engagement platform are felt across the board by patients, healthcare professionals, staff and facilities and can include:

  • Improved patient engagement, which can lead to a more substantial likelihood of achieving better health outcomes.
  • More convenient, alternative communication channels between patients and providers.
  • Improved health and wellness literacy.
  • Empowers patients to ask questions and take ownership of their healthcare. 
  • Lowered patient-incurred healthcare costs.
  • Fewer readmissions and hospitalizations.
  • Accessible medical records and other relevant resources.
  • Better patient loyalty and less patient turnover.
  • Improved on-premise revenue-generating efforts.
  • Lower perceived wait times for patients. 

4 coveted features in a patient engagement platform

Not all patient engagement platforms offer the same tools or features. Some aren’t intuitive and much less user-friendly, while others seem to require advanced IT or graphic design skills to create a patient-pleasing display. So, how do you know which patient engagement platform is suitable for your patients, your healthcare team and your facility? Four pillar features must exist in the perfect patient engagement platform.

Easy content creation

Patient health, wellness and safety are your top priority, not just content creation. Perhaps, the thought of creating engaging content alone has left you wondering how you can manage to rotate it into your already-busy schedule. And what might your learning curve be?

Easy content creation capabilities are an essential pillar to look for when choosing the right patient engagement platform. UPshow can ease any content-creation anxiety with its in-app Canva integration.

You can choose from easy-to-use templates or create your content from scratch with thousands of royalty-free stock photos, music, educational videos and more. This allows you to build customized content and marketing campaigns, spotlight upcoming events or partnerships, display important announcements and more. 

Entertainment options 

Your patient’s appointment may be one of the only breaks they experience that day. Patient engagement doesn’t always have to involve a teachable moment. Sometimes entertainment or a stress-reducing nature channel can help them relax and recenter, enabling them to focus and engage once their appointment begins.

Zero in on a patient engagement platform that offers unique entertainment options that reflect your diverse patient population. An extensive selection of entertainment channels (500+), including hyperlocal and live stream content, will undoubtedly deliver the variety your patients will appreciate.

Content scheduling 

With patients constantly checking in and checking out, you’ll need a patient engagement platform that allows you to manage and schedule your content on a screen-by-screen and location-by-location basis.

Fixed panels and multipanel displays are necessary for your waiting rooms and other high-traffic patient areas. That’s because they allow you to display more than one type of content at a time.

For example, suppose your pediatric patients respond well to a comforting digital aquarium display on your screens. In that case, there’s no need to disrupt their focus with a patient announcement for their parent or guardian. A patient engagement platform that offers multi-panel displays will allow you to display both simultaneously.

Robust analytics tools 

You need access to accurate metrics and insights to determine which engagement efforts are effective and will yield a higher ROI.

Choose a patient engagement platform with extensive insights and analytics to track both on-screen and mobile real-time engagement and location-specific performance. These capabilities will allow you to optimize your content campaigns to achieve better patient engagement, increase conversions and achieve a positive ROI.

UPshow has all of this, and more 

In addition to the four pillar features, UPshow’s patient engagement platform offers a diverse selection of engagement features and content tools that can drive higher engagement and make information more accessible.

Music streaming to enhance your waiting room atmosphere

What is the average time your patients spend in the waiting room? Ten minutes? Maybe 20? Nerves can run high in the waiting room, so offering diverse music options can help your patients feel more at ease. A significant part of the patient experience is making them feel welcome in a way that’s unique to their taste.

UPshow offers over 50 channels of premium audio that’s streamable, fully licensed and ad-free. Some patients prefer easy listening over a TV show or educational video. Choose a patient engagement platform that offers a wide range of diverse entertainment options, so they’re sure to find something that will make their waiting-room experience (and overall patient experience) that much better.

Content tools that make information accessible

A significant variable in the patient engagement equation is accessibility. Engaging your patients on their personal devices is an effective way to broaden your clinic’s reach before, during and long after their appointment ends. 

With UPshow’s QR Code campaign creator, you can give your patients access to targeted health and wellness literature, spotlight new holistic products and services or even invite them to complete a post-appointment survey.

Upgrade your patient engagement strategies with UPshow

No matter how cutting-edge your in-clinic technologies or procedures may be, clinical practices must invest in competitive patient engagement strategies for patients to achieve optimal wellness and ideal health outcomes.Equip your patients and practitioners with what they need to collaborate and communicate on their collective journey. Upgrade your patient engagement strategy with UPshow’s digital patient engagement platform. We welcome you to try a risk-free demo today. Discover a superior level of patient engagement and empowerment with UPshow.

Healthcare

How Technology is Transforming Customer Experience in Healthcare

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Creating a positive customer experience takes more than meeting consumer needs or demands. Businesses must exceed those expectations to retain customer loyalty and drive revenue growth. And the healthcare industry is no exception. 

With soaring healthcare costs combined with an online retail marketplace for health insurance, today’s patients want a healthcare customer experience that is convenient and tailored to their needs. 

In its literature review, the International Hospital Federation reported on research findings by Forrester Consulting, which show that over 25% of patients changed providers because of a negative digital health experience. Since 2019, that number has scaled by 40%.

Patient-centric technologies are improving the customer experience in healthcare in unprecedented ways. Healthcare providers are being pushed to embrace the digital healthcare transformation or risk their patients leaving them behind.

Trending approaches in managing healthcare experiences

Patient healthcare experience includes all patient interactions across multiple touchstones in the healthcare system. These interactions include:

  • Any member of a healthcare team.
  • Access to health information and resources.
  • Timely access to clinical or telehealth appointments.
  • Clear communication channels between a patient and their provider.
  • Transparency in health policies, services and fee structures.

Across the healthcare continuum, providers are investing in blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and other virtual healthcare technologies to create a meaningful, convenient and personalized healthcare experience that can drive better patient outcomes, as well as increasing patient accessibility through tech-based solutions like in-office screens.

Reducing anxiety with technology 

Patients experience varying levels of anxiety at different points of their healthcare experience. For some, anxiety may run high before an outpatient surgery while others may feel tense or on edge in the waiting room or triage.

Healthcare facilities can reduce patient anxiety by creating an immersive experience with innovative technologies. Research shows that clinical facilities that use immersive virtual reality (VR) technologies witness a reduction in both anxiety and pain in children and adults.

While VR may not be practical or affordable for many clinical practices, health providers can create an immersive experience in simpler yet effective ways. For instance, studies show that when music plays in clinical waiting rooms and preoperative areas, it has an anxiety-reducing effect on patients.

Digital tools can increase patient engagement

Patients need access to the right resources to make informed decisions about their health and wellness. Healthcare professionals can use digital tools to increase patient engagement, leading to positive health outcomes.

Health facilities are outfitting their communal and treatment-room TV screens with relevant educational resources and patient-centric materials. These digital tools empower patients to learn more about their medical conditions and treatment options in accessible ways.

Practitioners can also use digital tools to promote better transparency and build trust with their patients — two pillars necessary to improve patient engagement. One finding reports that practitioners who used digital screens to display electronic health records (EHR) to their patients experienced higher levels of patient engagement.

Opening channels of communication with digital signage 

No two patients are alike. Likewise, no two patient experiences are alike either. The more feedback healthcare clinics can garner from their patient population, the closer they’ll be to delivering the kind of healthcare experience patients want. As for the clinical team, data collected from these patient feedback platforms can drive patient-centric healthcare and facility improvements.

One of the simplest ways your clinic can solicit patient feedback is to invite them (or even incentivize them) to provide feedback about their pre-visit expectations and post-visit experience. 

You can plant screen displays and other digital signage at key patient access points (e.g., the check-in and check-out areas, etc.) so they are more likely to access them, taking your patients’ convenience and health into consideration.

The right technology can help you elevate customer experiences

Create an immersive patient experience 

Creating an immersive patient experience to reduce anxiety levels and drive patient engagement doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, you can use existing digital screens and technologies in your clinical practice to do it.

UPshow Health is an on-premise marketing cloud-based software designed to transform your clinic’s digital screens into conduits for the type of patient experience your patients have been looking for.

With UPshow Health, you can create an immersive patient experience by:

  • Offering accessible patient-centric medical and educational resources to scale patient engagement.
  • Displaying the latest treatment options and procedures.
  • Introducing your clinical care team to ease patients’ comfort levels.
  • Keeping your patients in the know about new in-clinic offerings, patient app and portal updates and mergers or community partnerships.
  • Showcasing must-know informative displays about your clinic to build patient loyalty.
  • Reducing anxiety by offering games like in-clinic trivia and other entertainment options.

QR codes make communication a two-way street 

The cornerstone of effective patient-provider communication is accessibility. QR-code technology is a cutting-edge way to empower patients by putting a communication channel in the palm of their hands.

Displaying QR-code technology on your screens invites patients to engage with your clinic from their own devices. 

You can use QR-code technology to invite patients to:

  • Encourage feedback by asking them to complete a pre or post-visit survey.
  • Drive better patient engagement by giving them access to the patient portal.
  • Keep them abreast of new products and treatments on your clinic’s e-commerce site.
  • Guide them to your clinic’s social media pages to build community and trust.

Prioritize entertainment and education 

The beauty of ever-evolving technology is that you can offer your patients more than one feature or resource at a time. For instance, UPshow Health allows you to educate and entertain your patients simultaneously with its fixed and multi-display capabilities.

You can also use content scheduling capabilities to set the duration of your educational and entertainment options. It also allows you to control the content of your screens across multiple locations or even on a screen-by-screen basis. These capabilities will also equip your health facility with the necessary insights and analytics to give unique patient populations the best possible healthcare customer experience.

UPshow can help your patients get more out of their visits 

Patients want the best of both worlds — modern, innovative and accessible healthcare along with a personalized and empathetic experience.UPshow Health can engage your patients in all areas of your practice and help you give them the healthcare customer experience they deserve. Sign up today for a free demo of UPshow Health and see how digital signage is transforming the patient healthcare experience one health facility at a time.

Healthcare

How to Improve Patient Engagement in Healthcare

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The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) reports that in 2022, the average annual health insurance premium for single coverage in the United States was $7,911 and $22,221 for families. Combining this with Statista’s research showing total out-of-pocket healthcare payments on the rise, it’s no wonder patients are becoming more vocal about what they do and don’t want on their healthcare journey.

Standards for better patient engagement in healthcare are evolving. The bar is high for all stakeholders, too. Patients want to feel seen, heard and respected by their healthcare providers. And if they aren’t engaged and satisfied? They’ll find another provider who will meet their needs.

One of the best ways healthcare clinics and hospitals can give patients what they want is to earn how to improve patient engagement in healthcare. This could involve onboarding creative healthcare solutions ranging from stricter adherence to patient treatment plans to using QR codes.

Why is patient engagement important? 

Patients are now looking for a more personalized customer experience from their healthcare providers than ever before. So, what is patient engagement in healthcare? It is the involvement and commitment of a patient in their own treatment plan as well as recovery prospects. They’re willing to pack up and move on to the next care provider to get the level of patient engagement and satisfaction they’re looking for.

The World Health Organization defines patient engagement as “the process of building the capacity of patients, families, carers, as well as healthcare providers to facilitate and support the active involvement of patients in their care, in order to enhance safety, quality and people-centeredness of healthcare service delivery.”

Patient engagement directly affects patient satisfaction. But its impact is broad sweeping and doesn’t stop there. 

Improving patient experience improves health outcomes

The importance of patient engagement in healthcare lies in the fact that patients that are more engaged in their own health tend to heal faster.

In fact, the global non-profit group, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), tells us the more patients are engaged in their healthcare decisions, the more likely they are to experience greater health outcomes.

In general, for most patients, positive health outcomes can include any one or combination of the following:

  • Treatment that met their physical, emotional and social needs.
  • A stronger sense of well-being.
  • Improved symptoms.
  • Better quality of life.
  • Higher levels of contentment and satisfaction.

Patients aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit from improved health outcomes either — especially when those health outcomes are reported and made accessible to the greater healthcare community.

Some of these benefits include: 

  • Revealing systemic deficits in resources and gaps in communication, ripe for improvement.
  • Raising in-clinic and industry-wide awareness of and adherence to best practices in patient care.
  • Lowering the risk of medical malpractice.
  • Improving patient loyalty and retention.
  • Reducing healthcare employee turnover.

Increased adherence to patient treatment plans

The cornerstone of effective patient engagement revolves around shared decision-making efforts between the patient, their family and their clinical team. When patients are engaged and empowered, they’re more likely to follow the agreed-upon treatment plan, including taking medications, continuing with therapy or rehabilitation routines and more.

Activated and engaged patients are proactive patients. Further, they’re more likely to advocate for their needs and seek reevaluation and guidance when something isn’t working in their treatment.

The benefits don’t stop there. When patients are engaged and adhere to their treatment plans, it can:

  • Lead to positive lifestyle changes.
  • Inspire them to continue communicating with their provider about their conditions, any issues that might arise, new treatment options and so on.
  • Empower them to seek preventative care.
  • Reduce the likelihood of readmissions and hospitalizations.
  • Decrease medical costs for patients and across the healthcare industry.

Stronger patient-provider communication

Empathy is necessary to achieve and sustain shared decision-making between a patient and their provider.  Patients want the opportunity to speak on behalf of their needs. Likewise, they need health professionals who provide accessible patient communication channels and extend an empathetic ear when they self-advocate.

Using your screens to think outside the box 

Patient engagement won’t improve unless your patients have access to the right tools and resources to help them along their journey.

UPshow Health is the leading on-premise digital patient engagement platform that can power your health facility’s screens with the resources and communication channels you need to empower — and better engage — your patients.

Share important information with displays that command attention 

To make the most of the short amount of time you have with your patients, you’ll need to make every minute they’re with you count and do it in a dynamic way.

With the aid of UPshow’s Canva integration and pre-made design templates, you can create content such as:

  • Displays that detail new or amended hours of operation.
  • Educational resources, healthy lifestyle tips, holistic or alternative remedies and more.
  • Patient announcements regarding vaccines, school-related health bulletins and foreign travel health advisories.
  • Customizable general or medical-oriented trivia games.
  • Introduce new clinical staff hires.
  • Spotlight patients and families to bolster a sense of community.
  • Showcase new health products, services and therapies with UPshow’s fixed-panel and multi-panel displays that all patients will see, no matter when they enter or leave.

Improve patient engagement by using QR codes to improve patient communication

One of the pillars of strong patient engagement is accessible and fluid communication between patients and their healthcare team. UPshow Health’s reach transcends the boundaries of your screens, allowing you to engage patients on their phones and personal devices.

With the help of the QR Code campaign creator, your healthcare facility can give your patients easy access to:

  • Your website and social media channels.
  • Online patient portal.
  • Mobile app.
  • Off-hours or around-the-clock medical professional chat forum.
  • Your digital healthcare storefront, where they can browse all of your products and services.
  • Patient feedback surveys to improve your patient engagement and satisfaction efforts.

Transform your patients’ experiences with UPshow

If patients aren’t engaged or satisfied on their healthcare journey, it can inhibit them from reaching their desired health outcomes. That’s a lose-lose for them, your facility and the healthcare industry as a whole which is why it is so important for administrative authorities to learn how to improve the patient experience at their healthcare facilities.

Empower your patients with UPshow Health and outfit them with the tools and resources they need to rise as the primary decision-makers on their health and wellness journey.Try a risk-free demo today, and discover the benefits higher patient engagement and retention can bring for your patients, clinic and the healthcare industry.

Healthcare

Harnessing the Power of Technology to Enhance Clinic Waiting Room Design

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A patient’s experience in the waiting room can set the tone for how satisfied they are with their clinical experience. In fact, a research study published in the American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC) shows a strong negative correlation between long wait times and a patient’s “confidence in the care provider and perceived quality of care.”

While issues like long wait times may prove unavoidable, there are ways to make the wait more tolerable. It all starts with revamping your clinic’s waiting room.

Why waiting room design is so important

By and large, patients may feel anxious while waiting for their appointments to begin. Suppose your waiting room is cramped and doesn’t have a designated child or family area or technology to provide access to the patient information they need. This can exacerbate anxiety and negatively impact their patient experience.

Tailoring your clinic’s waiting room design to meet your patients’ needs can produce positive outcomes for them and your team.

Reduce patient anxiety 

The aesthetic, layout, energy and opportunities for patient engagement are just some factors that can impact a patient’s waiting room experience. When it comes to your waiting room design, you’ll want to offer comfort that translates to a welcoming space for them. 

Keep these ideas in mind to reduce their pre-appointment anxiety:

  • Choose a warm wall color, such as cream, light sage or another warm and welcoming hue.
  • Incorporate greenery. Plants can turn an otherwise cold clinical space into an inviting one.
  • Offer comfortable seating that is well-spaced and values privacy.
  • Incorporate entertainment and nature scenes or share wellness tips on your TVs to help patients keep their nerves at bay.

Create a more pleasant waiting room experience 

Creating a welcoming clinical waiting room design involves more than choosing the right wall colors or seat cushions. It also means investing in the best ways to boost patient engagement.

To do this, you’ll need to consider all of the ways your patients and their families currently interact or could engage with your waiting room:

Communicate the values of your practice through design 

Which values does your practice stand by? No doubt, you’re family-oriented. Of course, your practice exudes an unwavering commitment to patient privacy, too.

You can communicate the values of your practice through your clinic waiting room design. Start with your primary patient demographic. Are they children and adolescents? Or, adults who must bring their children to their appointments? 

If so, you can show your patients your investment in them and their families by:

Enhance your waiting space with digital signage 

Research studies show that, on average, patients spend 41 minutes waiting from the time they register to the time they see a clinician. While that is a long time, it’s also an opportunity to engage your patients and enhance their patient experience before they get called to the back.

Entertain and soothe anxious patients 

Making various entertainment options available in your waiting room can help patients develop a positive mindset before their appointment. Rather than playing a local talk show or a stress-inducing news channel, you’ll want to offer a wide range of entertainment options to mirror your diverse patient population.

UPshow Health is an on-premise marketing cloud that can transform your waiting room's TVs and digital screens into an engaging educational and entertainment hub. From curated healthcare channel packs to over 500 entertainment channels, with live stream and hyperlocal options, your patients can select what they want to watch and when they want to watch it.

Not all patients will have the mental bandwidth to focus on a TV show, much less find it relaxing. Give your patients access to alternative, relaxation-inducing options:

  • With over 50 music channels to choose from, UPshow Premium Audio allows you to stream music through your TV screens.
  • Keep it simple and relaxing by playing nature sounds or displaying an underwater or rainforest scene on your screens.
  • General or medical-related trivia may promote friendly competition and foster community among your patients.

Prioritize patient engagement and awareness

Natural lighting and entertainment options aside, your clinic waiting room design should prioritize patient engagement and awareness. Start by leveraging your waiting room screens to give patients access to health and wellness information, important updates and announcements about your practice and so much more.

These are just some of the ways UPshow Health can help you use your waiting room screens to fortify patient engagement:

  • Display updated hours and contact information.
  • Introduce new members of your clinical staff to the patient community.
  • Showcase patient spotlights to build a sense of community.
  • Minimize pressure on your team by displaying current wait times, so your patients have a sense of when it’s their turn.
  • If you sell health and wellness products, let patients know how to access your storefront.
  • Encourage feedback by displaying QR-code technology that your patients can scan to take a post-visit survey.

Effortlessly create stunning displays 

You don’t need to be an expert in graphic design to create eye-catching, informative displays for your waiting room. UPshow’s in-app Canva integration gives you access to design templates and royalty-free stock photos, videos, and music to create customized and engaging displays.

With patients constantly coming in and going out, you’ll want to use fixed and multipanel displays to keep critical announcements on the screen while simultaneously engaging those patients who continue to wait.

With the help of accessible insights and analytics, you’ll be privy to what your patients are engaging with the most. These insights will allow you to optimize your screens to continue creating the targeted and engaging content they want.

UPshow can transform your clinic waiting room

A welcoming and engaging waiting room can turn an otherwise anxious experience into a pleasant one for your patients. And the best waiting room design for your clinic is anything but skin-deep.UPshow Health can transform your waiting room into a welcoming, anxiety-reducing space that engages your patients and their families. Sign-up for your custom demo and discover how UPshow can help you transform your waiting space.

Healthcare

Strategies You Can Implement to Improve Employee Engagement in Your Healthcare Setting

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reports a staggering uptick in stress and burnout among healthcare employees, culminating in a projected net shortage of over three million essential healthcare workers within the next five years.

Employee burnout, low engagement and staff shortages don’t just affect healthcare employees either. Instead, they significantly impact patient safety and outcomes, along with the operational effectiveness of the healthcare facility.

Now, more than ever, industry leaders are searching for ways to reduce burnout by improving employee engagement in healthcare. Some strategies are easier to implement and more effective than others in raising employee engagement levels.

Challenges healthcare workers face, and how employee engagement can help 

Even before COVID struck, healthcare employee engagement levels were tanking, especially for frontline workers. Fast forward to our post-pandemic world, and now healthcare employees are shouldering even more. 

From heavier workloads, limited resources and longer hours to rising compassion fatigue and stress, investing in the best employee engagement strategies in healthcare is the healing balm healthcare workers — and their patients — need.

Limited access to learning material and resources 

With ongoing employee shortages in healthcare comes increased workloads and added strain on the providers who remain at the helm of patient care. These shortages fuel the need for these care providers to assume new and varied roles to compensate for this deficit.

To quell this shortage, boost employee engagement, reduce care-provider errors and improve retention, healthcare leaders must prioritize providing greater access to continued education (CE) training and other resources, along with effective centralized communication channels.

Without access to these resources, front-line care providers won’t have the knowledge they need to provide the best patient care possible. This can lead to added stress and lower engagement levels and, at the same time, compromises patient safety and derails positive health outcomes. 

Increasing administrative workloads

Healthcare professionals are master multi-taskers. But with rising staff shortages, effective multitasking has reached a tipping point. Now, the remaining staff is juggling their job duties and those left behind by colleagues who have resigned. 

Medscape reports that the leading cause of burnout among medical professionals is the increased number of administrative tasks they’ve assumed. Shouldering heavy administrative workloads has caused more stress and burnout, leaving a wake of negative consequences that impact their ability to provide quality patient care.

Healthcare leaders and administration must offer innovative technologies in their healthcare setting to consolidate and streamline these tasks to alleviate the ever-growing burden on their clinical care team.

Significant burnout and stress

Healthcare providers are in one of the most high-stakes professions in the world. Care providers are coping with overbearing stress, isolation and burnout at record levels.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, on May 23, 2022, Dr. Vivek Murthy sounded the alarm on rising burnout in healthcare by issuing a Surgeon’s General Advisory on “health worker burnout and wellbeing.” Dr. Murthy deemed it a “crisis” and declared it a national priority with clear directives to reduce its growth and impact on healthcare professionals and their patients.

One of Dr. Murthy’s directives centered on building a healthcare culture that supports well-being, inclusion and respect. Creating a positive work atmosphere will require all hands on deck, from government leaders to health admin, physicians, nurses, and feedback from care providers across the spectrum. 

Healthcare leaders can foster this collaboration by encouraging regular feedback via accessible communication channels in their healthcare facilities, often in the form of feedback forms and surveys.

How your screens can help you keep your staff engaged 

Improving employee engagement in healthcare doesn’t have to be complicated. Start by using your existing resources —such as your facility’s screens — to make real and lasting changes for your healthcare employees. UPshow SHIFT for healthcare will streamline this process for you.

Make information accessible

One of the most effective ways to reduce your employees' stress levels (and improve their engagement) is to give them access to the resources and knowledge they need when they need it to provide quality patient care.

UPshow SHIFT is a digital employee engagement platform that can run on your facility’s screens as an on-premise signage cloud. Since most healthcare employees are deskless workers, ensuring everyone has access to the resources and communication channels necessary to perform at their best can be challenging.

With UPshow SHIFT, you can offer access to these resources and engage your healthcare providers in the following ways:

  • Continuing education training, feedback forms and more are made accessible through customizable on-screen QR codes that will put administrative information right in the hands of your employees.
  • Need-to-know educational videos, text announcements, images and tutorials that can help keep your clinical staff updated on your facility’s (and the medical profession’s) latest policies and procedures.
  • Streamlined digital information that ensures widespread visibility throughout your facility (and each of its satellite locations).  
  • Display upcoming training modules, training statuses and other tasks to ensure faster completion and compliance.

Make communication a consistent practice 

Many of your employees are on the move, treating one patient to the next. Equipping them with easy-to-access communication channels and the resources they need will keep your staff in the know and reduce clinical errors.

With UPshow SHIFT, your facility will find it easy to:

  • Create customized content via in-app Canva integration and pre-made templates so you can share critical information, announcements and more.
  • Solicit targeted feedback from your employees to improve engagement by creating surveys for two-way communication and ongoing dialogue about issues relating to operations, HR, patient care and more.
  • Prioritize employee morale and show appreciation by showcasing staff on your displays, celebrating your team's successes and highlighting your employees' achievements and milestones.

UPshow can help you keep your employees and patients engaged

Healthcare professionals can’t provide patients with outstanding quality care when they’re battling their own stress and burnout. As Dr. Murthy advises, addressing burnout is a national priority, and healthcare facilities are on the frontlines of making significant changes to bring it under control. UPshow SHIFT can streamline training, promote employee recognition and improve internal communications to boost employee engagement in your healthcare facility. Try a risk-free demo today, and put your team on the frontlines of making lasting change across the healthcare industry.

Healthcare

Creating a Seamless Retail Healthcare Experience: Trends and Tactics

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Since the height of the pandemic, change has rocked the US healthcare system and its stakeholders. From nursing shortages to dwindling medical supplies, spikes in hospital bankruptcies and clinic closures — along with the demand for retail healthcare — the traditional in-clinic healthcare model is undergoing a significant facelift.

Today’s patients want medical services and advice when needed — not three weeks down the road at the first available appointment. Recent research on retail healthcare trends shows a growing number of retail health clinics are stepping up to meet patients’ demand for convenient visits, affordable care and more, especially in rural and vulnerable patient populations.

But as the demand for retail healthcare continues to rise, patients expect more convenience and accessibility. 

And they’re willing to shop near and far to find it. 

To create a more seamless patient experience, retail health clinics must leverage innovative technologies, such as digital patient engagement platforms, to equip patient-consumers with what they need to make informed decisions about their health and wellness for the long haul.

A rise in retail healthcare

When the COVID pandemic hit and lockdowns were in full force, hospital visits and ER intakes were restricted, except for critical cases. Although retail healthcare clinics have existed since the beginning of 2000, they scaled significantly during the height of the pandemic, especially in rural patient populations. 

And they’re still going strong. Researchers anticipate the US retail healthcare market will reach a $4.22 billion valuation by 2029.

Patients use retail healthcare clinics, telehealth and mobile clinics to treat acute conditions and tend to preventative care needs. The convenience of walk-in availability or an appointment within 24 hours, combined with transparent fee structures and low costs is only fueling the demand for additional retail healthcare options.

Keep patient healthcare accessible 

Traditional brick-and-mortar medical facilities and retail health clinics alike must revisit their patient engagement strategies to improve the overall patient-consumer experience in this evolving climate. Embracing innovative technologies can make patient healthcare more accessible and convenient and bring a positive patient experience within reach.

QR code technology can put important medical information in patients’ hands anywhere they go. According to a recent article from the British Medical Journal (BMJ), convenient access to personal medical records is a cornerstone in empowering patients to take a proactive role in their healthcare.

You can use QR technology to create a seamless retail healthcare experience by:

  • Allowing digital check-in capabilities.
  • Outfitting your retail healthcare clinic’s screens with targeted infographics and videos that answer patient FAQs.
  • Offering access to an around-the-clock nurse chat 
  • Providing medical records, care plans, prescription reminders and vaccine updates can be accessed from anywhere.
  • Streamlining the patient-consumer experience by making educational materials and other resources available (and shareable).
  • Providing language translations for forms and other content.
  • Soliciting post-visit feedback to better inform, target and optimize your patient engagement strategies.

Make patient experiences convenient 

The patient-consumer experience begins the second a patient steps on your premises and can continue long after they leave. Take advantage of their time with your facility to make their experience as positive and convenient as possible right from the get-go.

Recruit your clinic’s existing TV screens and monitors as partners in their patient experience. The best patient engagement platform can give patients the personalized touch they want.

For instance, make check-in easy. You can free up your staff from check-in obligations (and long lines) by deploying QR-code technology to encourage digital sign-in upon arrival. Also, your patients are likely busy and need to return to X number of tasks, so use your screens to display your current wait times. This way, they’ll know where they stand in real time.

Creating a seamless retail healthcare experience involves trial and error. To know what’s working and what isn’t, solicit patient-customer feedback. They’ll tell you what they want (and don’t want). 

You could place a QR code on a digital screen at the check-out desk or on a fixed panel just before the exit to encourage their input. Incentives are always welcome, too. Take a quid-pro-quo approach by offering an exclusive discount on their next visit or a free service in exchange for their feedback. Not only will you garner invaluable feedback, but you’ll also fortify patient-consumer loyalty in the process. Repeat visits and, by default, increased patient engagement can help create improved health outcomes.

The right digital engagement solution can transform retail healthcare experiences

When a patient is in the driver’s seat on the road to better health and wellness — as The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports — they’re more likely to experience positive health outcomes.

Partnering with the right digital patient engagement solution can engage and empower patients by offering convenient accessibility, patient-education opportunities, collaborative communication channels and so much more. To better retain patients this way, retail healthcare providers must establish and continuously build trust to maintain those care relationships.

Build trust and retain patients 

While most patients now demonstrate they trust using retail healthcare facilities (compared to “traditional” medical providers), research shows this hasn’t always been the case.

Retail healthcare facilities can leverage a digital patient engagement solution to build trust organically via education, transparency and more. When patients have access to the personalized educational materials and resources they need, they’re more likely to gain clarity about their health, so they can ultimately engage with and assume an active role in their healthcare journey.

Retail healthcare facilities can build trust and boost patient retention by:

  • Offering personalized educational materials to include relevant and accessible videos and tutorials to increase awareness and understanding.
  • Highlighting healthy lifestyle tips, including meditation exercises, recipes, physical fitness strategies, holistic/alternative medicine recommendations and more.
  • Raising awareness of the latest government guidelines for vaccine protocols or international travel vaccination requirements.
  • Introducing patients to digital patient education communities to encourage awareness and internal patient support systems.

Promote other services and payment plans 

Patients want access to the latest and most effective service and treatment options available. And the closer, the better.  Is your clinic offering a new Ayurvedic procedure? Perhaps a holistic fertility treatment? An experience-now-pay-later payment plan option? Or are you hoping to launch a new private parenting support group? You’ll want to promote those services and plans with visible and accessible digital signage.

UPshow allows you to better engage patients by spotlighting new and existing service and treatment options or community partnerships your patients will want to know about. Their engagement will drive revenue growth for your retail healthcare facility, affording you additional resources to maximize their engagement over time.

UPshow makes it easy to transform the retail healthcare space 

Retail healthcare trends show that patient-consumers want convenient access to affordable healthcare outlets. After all, they are the lead decision-maker in their health and wellness journey. But what is a leader without a collaborative support system behind them?UPshow’s digital patient engagement platform can create a seamless retail healthcare experience that patients will trust every step of the way. Sign-up for our risk-free demo and discover how UPshow’s innovative patient engagement solution is on the frontline of transforming the retail healthcare space the way patients want.

Healthcare

The Importance of Patient Engagement in Healthcare Outcomes

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Positive patient engagement in healthcare depends on a patient’s ability to communicate with their medical provider openly and have access to resources that allow them to take ownership of their health. Broadly speaking, the importance of patient engagement in healthcare lies in the fact that patients make more informed decisions when given access to resources and other enabling information. 

According to HealthMine, almost 75% of all patients claim electronic access to their medical history, records and more would improve communication with their healthcare team and ultimately give them a clearer understanding of their healthcare needs.

When patients are adequately engaged and achieve positive health outcomes, it can translate to a better patient experience, fewer readmissions and lower medical costs across the board. Healthcare facilities are now more invested than ever in discovering innovative ways to engage their patients and aid them in achieving the best possible outcomes. However, to really understand the intricacies of the importance of patient engagement in healthcare, it is better to start by understanding what is patient engagement in healthcare in the first place.

What is patient engagement in healthcare?

Patient engagement in healthcare means patients have and use medical resources to make informed decisions about their health and wellness. It involves a shared-decision making process between the patient (and their family network) and the clinical team that is tethered to patient-centered education and an open communication model.

Why is patient engagement important for positive patient outcomes in healthcare?

High patient engagement has a positive impact on healthcare outcomes as per the CDC.

Engaged patients have better outcomes because they’re better informed about their treatment plans and are more likely to be in communication with their clinical team. This means they’re more likely to comply with prescribed treatments and therapies, which can lead to better treatment results. 

 Patient engagement can also encourage positive patient outcomes by:

  • Empowering patients to stay motivated by setting goals. Clinical collaboration with patients can lead to patients that are more engaged in self-care, which includes regular and consistent exercise and adopting healthy eating habits.
  • Encouraging patients to practice self-advocacy, perform additional research and ask questions whenever necessary.
  • Increasing patient retention rates for clinical practices.
  • Reducing the number of unnecessary readmissions and hospital stays.
  • Lowering unnecessary patient-incurred medical costs.

How to ensure better healthcare patient engagement

Now that we understand why patient engagement is important, let’s try to consider what is involved in its implementation. A primary care provider and their medical team only have so many hours of direct or indirect contact with each patient every year. 

Outside of wellness appointments and checkups or patient-portal chat sessions, it is a patient’s responsibility to assume a can-do mindset and commit to treatment plans and lifestyle goals on their own time.

From a practitioner's perspective, providing patients with the tools and resources they need to remain engaged to achieve their ideal health outcomes is critical. At the same time, practitioners and healthcare leaders must endeavor to understand the unique needs of their patient demographic. Some of the most effective ways to do this include:

  • Co-developing an individualized health and wellness plan tailored to each patient’s needs that accounts for their lifestyle habits, preferences, etc.
  • Providing easy access to educational resources via an innovative patient engagement system.
  • Creating and maintaining an environment (and convenient communication channels, such as a patient portal or nurse practitioner chat feature) where open communication is encouraged between the healthcare team and the patient.
  • Listening attentively to the patient's concerns and providing helpful resources if and whenever necessary.
  • Utilizing technology tools (e.g., apps, websites, etc.) for tracking progress throughout treatment so they can develop ownership over their choices along the way.
  • Committing to professional development opportunities and training centered on engagement and meeting the needs of diverse patient communities.

Patient engagement software can help you improve patient outcomes 

As technology evolves, clinical practitioners must find the most convenient and user-friendly ways to engage their patients and drive positive patient outcomes. UPshow’s Patient engagement software is an innovative digital engagement solution that fits that bill.

Create accessible and engaging content 

One of the best ways to remove barriers to patient engagement is by creating accessible and engaging content. With UPshow’s patient engagement software, you can use your existing televisions and screen displays to showcase your customized content and boost patient engagement.

You can create a content playlist of images, educational videos and other content that you can control from anywhere. With UPshow, it’s easy to make content that breaks down complex medical concepts or treatments to make it relatable, provide health and wellness tips and more.

If you’re worried you don’t have the technical know-how to accomplish this, don’t worry! UPshow offers preexisting, ready-to-use templates through in-platform Canva integration that you can use to create just the right content for your patients. The in-house managed services team can also help with content strategy, targeted creative design and more. Our team is here to offer support every step of the way.

Suppose you would like to inform patients about a new service, patient-portal feature or a feedback survey. In that case, you can use QR-code integration capabilities that give patients access to content right from their phones and other devices.

Make your healthcare environment one your patients feel safe in 

For patients to open up to their healthcare providers — much less engage — they need to feel safe. After all, trust begins with safety and security. 

Creating a calming healthcare environment with entertainment features can help patients feel more at ease and less anxious. This offers patients an opportunity to focus on their wellness.

You can accomplish this by highlighting targeted entertainment features in your content rotation. 

For instance, patients who experience anxiety might appreciate a waiting room filled with serene sounds and scenes of nature. You can do this by coupling images of nature with one of UPshow’s lyric and ad-free music stations to recenter.

You could also take advantage of UPshow’s fixed panel and multipanel displays to highlight mindfulness best practices and healthy living recommendations simultaneously.

Forego cable Television and, instead, opt for UPshow’s 500 entertainment channels. These include live-streamed and hyper-local options. With several channels at their fingertips, patients are sure to find something to help them focus and settle in.

UPshow is the patient engagement software healthcare leaders trust 

Driving patient engagement and positive health outcomes is a team effort that relies on fluid communication between clinicians and patients, patient access to educational materials and more.UPshow’s patient engagement software is a partner that healthcare leaders trust. We welcome you to try our risk-free demo so you can discover how UPshow’s patient engagement software can help your clinic, and patients, succeed.

Retail

How UPshow SHIFT's Integration with POS Systems Works

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Finding ways to drive sales is no easy task. It requires more than clever marketing and promotions. To keep numbers up and see consistent results, it’ll need to be a team effort. 

But how?

Imagine displaying digital daily sales leaderboards to foster friendly competition among your staff. Or would you like to start showcasing your top performers in an employee spotlight each month? Integrating an on-premise digital engagement platform with your point-of-sale (POS) system can help. 

Keep reading to discover how UPshow SHIFT leverages integration with POS systems to help you train, inform and motivate your team–increasing your employee engagement, and maybe even sales.

What is POS integration and how does an integrated POS system work?

A point-of-sale system (POS) is the nerve center of your business. It’s a digitalized system used in hospitality and retail environments to record, process and track sales transactions. It can also track your inventory, compute taxes and generate sales reports.

Back in the day, a POS system included a cash register and a receipt book. Today, POS systems are fully computerized, consisting of both hardware and software and can include the following:

  • Cash register
  • Computer, tablet or other internet-enabled devices
  • A credit card machine or card reader
  • Mobile payment capabilities
  • Scanner
  • Printer

Depending on how sophisticated your POS system is, you can also track loyalty programs, customer data and purchase habits and your marketing campaigns. To do that, though, you need POS system integration with a software service that can create a more compelling customer experience, front-of-house, too. More about that later!

What do you expect from POS system integration

Before you integrate digital signage with your POS system, you’ll want to determine goals for what you hope to accomplish front of house, back of house or both.

To help you set realistic goals that can be aligned with your employee engagement strategy, you’ll want to use your POS system to track your key performance indicators (KPI).

You can likely use your POS system to track and gain more precise insights about some of the following KPIs:

1. Track metrics, such as sales volume, average sales, customer loyalty, and customer retention rate.

Your POS system can tell you what you’re selling the most or least during different shifts. You can also track your average sales and the number of transactions per customer. 

If your customer retention rate has declined, you can use digital signage to bring it back around again by offering BOGO deals or a free item with their next purchase.

2. Track customer preferences and buying patterns.

Your customers know what they want. And your POS system has kept tabs on their preferences and buying patterns. 

Let’s say you’re about to unveil a new burger special. Reports from your POS system can show you that, on average, your customers purchase more burgers at lunchtime. You can create a targeted advertisement with UPshow and display the new burger during lunch and other peak times on your front-of-house screens.

3. Analyze customer feedback.

Let’s face it—sometimes customers can be brutally honest.  Luckily, you can turn lemons into lemonade with UPshow. 

UPshow makes it possible to create, share, and deploy surveys and other engaging content that you can use to tailor your content and marketing strategy. Coupled with metrics from your POS system, these insights will make it possible to create highly targeted content that is sure to command attention.

4. Analyze employee performance.

Research shows that employees who are better engaged and feel included tend to perform better. Have you run an employee performance report lately and noticed that a few of your top performers are underperforming

You can use UPshow SHIFT to create inspiring BOH messages or display performance goals so your employees keep their eye on the prize. Here’s how UPshow Shift can integrate with POS systems.

Set up your hardware and software for POS system integration

UPshow SHIFT is an on-premise performance marketing cloud that leverages integration with your POS systems to maximize the potential of the existing digital screens in your business. 

Setting up is easy. The first step is to ensure your digital screens are visible and placed in high-traffic areas to increase customer engagement (but not congestion during rush-hour shifts).

Next, simply download the UPshow software directly onto the screen if it is Bluetooth and wireless enabled. Otherwise, you may need a hardwire connection.

Depending on your POS system (e.g., Xenial, NCR Aloha, etc.), you’ll next integrate it with the UPshow SHIFT software. UPshow’s customer service team is always available around the clock to troubleshoot or help make your integration as smooth as possible.

Create content that maximizes the benefits of Point of Sale integration

You want to create digital content that can unlock all the benefits of POS system integration by engaging and motivating your employees to perform at their prime. But what if creating content isn’t your strong suit (or priority)? No problem!

With UPshow SHIFT’s Canva integrations, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Their ready-made templates are easy to use, so you can customize them with your branding and unique content to engage and motivate your employees.

Under pressure from corporate to have your employees complete their annual mandatory training in safety and compliance? UPshow’s QR code integration makes it easy to create interactive signage.

Your employees can scan the QR code on an integrated POS system to access their training portal and other important information. And you can track who’s completed it, how long it took them, their training results and more—allowing you to analyze the metrics and make adjustments before next year’s training.

Use insights and analytics to adjust your screens

The more data you have about your employee and customer engagement, the better you’ll be at making informed decisions that improve employee satisfaction and drive revenue and other business outcomes. 

Here are some of the digital signage analytics you’ll have at your fingertips with UPshow SHIFT:

  • Measure the performance of your mobile engagement and on-screen content.
  • Track employee & customer engagement.
  • Record QR code scans.
  • Observe a detailed view of your campaign performances.
  • Export your data and share reports.

Combining UPshow SHIFT’s on-screen data analytics with your POS data and reports can help you know what’s working or if you should pivot and optimize your on-screen content—saving you time, money and other resources.

How you can make the most of POS system integration

Create leaderboards to leverage POS system integration across multiple screens

A little friendly competition never hurt anyone! 

You can drive sales and encourage team members to promote limited-time offers with POS integration. This makes it possible to track and share sales across shifts and individual team members so that you can create live leaderboards for your digital signage. 

It’s the perfect way to add flair to your employee engagement strategy and to create camaraderie amongst team members. 

Enhance customer experiences and drive productivity 

For those customers waiting for you to roll out those vegan options, digital signage will allow you to advertise and recommend your new additions. 

Ready to launch your location’s 50%-off Friday campaign? You can share this type of promotion on your front-of-house screens, keeping your customers in the know.

UPshow makes integration with POS systems simple

Integrating your POS system with UPshow SHIFT can make the difference between meeting performance goals and exceeding expectations.

Ready to keep your employees and customers engaged and informed? UPshow’s team is prepared to help. Sign up for a free demo today!

Healthcare

Innovative Patient Engagement Solutions for the Treatment Area

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From your waiting room to triage down to your treatment and procedure rooms, keeping patients informed about their conditions and treatment options wherever they are is essential. In fact, it can make the difference between achieving positive results and the best possible health outcomes.

Outfitting your treatment rooms with the right patient engagement solution will encourage patients to interact with their surroundings —enabling them to take the reins on the path toward better health and wellness.

How patient engagement solutions boost treatment outcomes

It may seem like it takes a village to improve patient engagement but if you have the right patient engagement solutions you efforts will yield results faster and with more accuracy. 

At its core, patient engagement must include ongoing collaboration, trust and shared decision-making between patients and their medical care team.

Every patient needs easy access to personalized healthcare education, tools and other resources in order to understand how to best protect their health. When they do, they’re more likely to experience higher levels of patient engagement and better health outcomes.

Yet, according to a recent survey by the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst Insights Council, healthcare professionals believe that only 34% of their patients are highly engaged.

Such findings are leading to a growing interest in finding ways to increase patient engagement with innovative solutions. However, the key question is how do patient engagement solutions actually boost treatment outcomes?

Digital patient engagement solutions make information more accessible

Patients might spend anywhere from a few minutes to several hours in your treatment rooms. Engaging them starts by giving them access to the information they need to make educated decisions about their health conditions and treatment options. 

Equipping your treatment rooms with digital patient engagement solutions can bring patients face-to-face with learning materials and educational opportunities.

The best digital patient engagement solutions provide your medical facility with the ease and flexibility to:

  • Share translated, patient-friendly information on the TV screens in your treatment rooms.
  • Make patient-centered information and learning opportunities accessible via their mobile devices through customizable QR-code technology.
  • Disseminate and increase access to critical patient information on their tablet or phone screens, such as displaying a QR code to your mobile patient portal.
  • Track QR code scans and more via UPshow Connect to determine which content leads to the most action (and engagement) from your patients.

Healthcare patient engagement solutions offer flexibility

Sharing healthcare literature and action-driving information in a convenient and entertaining way that appeals to your patients is half the battle toward improving patient engagement. 

You can use UPshow’s digital signage solutions to disseminate healthcare information in multiple formats that will engage every patient.

Here are some of the best ways to share general and customized patient-centric information in your treatment areas:

  • Schedule and distribute a content roll of short educational videos about common conditions or illnesses, new treatment methods,  community partnerships and more.
  • Showcase mindfulness tips or healthy lifestyle hacks with text-based screens that are sure to leave patients informed and more confident. 
  • Alleviate patient anxiety in the treatment area by displaying medically-oriented or general trivia.
  • Create a more dynamic patient experience with image-rich content that can entertain, inform, empower and even calm your patients.

How UPshow can help you increase patient engagement

Think of UPshow’s patient-first digital engagement platform as a co-mentor in your clinic — there to inform, educate, engage and empower your patients in the treatment area and beyond. Here’s how to leverage our patient engagement solutions to maximize patient engagement in your treatment rooms.

Create and share content with ease 

No need to trade in your scrub cap for a tech-wizard hat. You can create and share diverse and customized content on your treatment room screens with UPshow’s easy-to-use content-creation tools and features. Here’s how:

  • UPshow’s CANVA integration allows you to easily create unique, patient-centric content by giving you access to creator and editor tools. You’ll have in-app access to royalty-free photos, videos, and customizable templates.
  • Use the healthcare, ready-made templates for easy and streamlined content creation.
  • Seek guidance from UPshow’s in-house design and managed services team any time of the day.
  • Update your treatment areas (and waiting room) screens in real-time to ensure relevancy and consistency.

Strategically share content with patients 

What you display on the screens in your treatment areas likely won’t be the same as what you show in your waiting rooms. There’s a simple reason for that, too. Patients have diverse engagement needs in different spaces.

Content customization and location-specific content scheduling features of UPshow’s patient engagement platform make it easy to schedule content and update displays for each patient’s needs, depending on where they are in your facility.

For instance, while you may offer a popular music playlist in the waiting room, you may want to avoid that in the treatment area. Instead, provide soothing background music that takes a second chair to the face-to-face interaction between patients and their medical team.

UPshow’s patient engagement platform will allow you to:

  • Schedule and control your treatment-area screen content by creating campaigns via Playlists.
  • Customize your campaigns on a screen-by-screen basis.
  • Pause short-term and long-term content campaigns and edit them whenever necessary.
  • Stay in the know with remote screen-monitoring tools to ensure functionality, continuity, accuracy and more.

Get the best of both worlds, share information and entertain patients with one software 

Patient engagement isn’t just about continuous learning and collaborative decision-making. It’s also critical to maximize their patient experience with entertainment opportunities.

UPshow’s digital patient engagement software can give your patients a well-rounded engagement experience with its entertainment features.

Here’s what you can offer your patients to improve their treatment-area experience:

  • Introduce your patients to your social media pages and encourage them to take an active role in their in-clinic community from anywhere.
  • Keep it simple by offering your patients access to over 500 entertainment channels.

UPshow's patient engagement solutions for hospitals and clinics can help you improve patient outcomes passively

Medical professionals can only spend so much one-on-one time with each patient, which can make it hard to answer all of their questions or educate them about healthcare issues. 

Taking advantage of every opportunity to engage your patients in innovative ways — especially in your treatment rooms — will get them one step closer to experiencing the health outcomes you both desire. With the right patient engagement solutions you can passively and constantly disseminate key treatment information to your patients within and without treatment rooms.

In fact, UPshow’s digital patient engagement solutions can transform your treatment area into an engagement epicenter. Try a risk-free demo today and discover the power of innovative digital signage.

Healthcare

Elevate your Doctor's Waiting Room with These Patient Engagement Ideas

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The patient waiting room experience begins the second they step foot into the doctor's office. If your patients find uncomfortable chairs, the same magazines as the last visit and long waiting times, then their visit won’t start on a positive note. 

That can negatively impact their perception of the visit and the care they receive. As for patient engagement? 

Stalled.

Time spent in a doctor’s office waiting room is often passive, too—with each patient waiting their turn as the minutes tick by. So, you’ll want to consider ways to engage them there before their appointment begins.

To boost patient engagement (and help them achieve the best possible health outcomes), ensure the doctor's clinic waiting room is as welcoming, interactive and engaging as possible. Here’s how you can do this, just using the screens in your waiting room. 

What is patient engagement, and why is it so important in a medical office waiting room?

Patient engagement refers to the ongoing dialogue and collaborative care between a medical care provider, their patient (and their family) to educate, inform and empower the patient to make the best decisions about their healthcare, treatment and wellness. 

The goal is for the patient to be as engaged as possible in their healthcare decisions to maximize their health outcomes.

Why patient engagement should be paramount in the doctor's waiting room?

Patients must sit behind the wheel on their healthcare journey—not in the passenger seat. Research shows that engaged patients make informed and educated decisions about their health and wellness and it all begins in the doctor’s office waiting room.

It gives patients a clearer understanding of their health helping them formulate preferred healing and treatment goals. Engaged patients are also more likely to commit to doing what it takes to heal in a way that works best for them. 

That can lead to lower healthcare costs, fewer unnecessary treatments and hospitalizations and the best possible health outcomes.

The best ways to boost patient engagement in the doctor's office waiting room

There is no secret design formula for outfitting a doctor’s office waiting room with features that improve patient engagement. But we’ve compiled some of the best ways to boost patient engagement, regardless of your budget or penchant for interior design.

Share patient education videos in the waiting room

A pivotal patient engagement idea is to keep every person who steps into your doctor’s office waiting room informed, an informed patient is a more engaged patient. 

Playing patient education videos in the waiting room can improve patients’ understanding of complex medical concepts

It’s the perfect opportunity to clarify any misconceptions and encourages open patient-practitioner dialogue.

Regardless of your specialization, here are a few types of patient-education videos that can help inform patients and reduce waiting-room anxiety:

  • Videos that raise awareness about an illness, condition or lifestyle choice
  • Healthcare-tip videos
  • What-to-expect videos
  • Meet-the-staff/nurses/doctor video
  • Patient spotlight videos to build an in-clinic community & improve patient experiences
  • Procedure-prep informational videos

Upgrade your patient waiting room signage

Not every patient will have the bandwidth to watch a 15-minute how-to video on the best ways to avoid contracting the common cold, etc. 

Upgrading your doctor’s office waiting room signage with digital signage display software can fill that gap and engage patients who prefer a bite-sized (and entertaining) waiting-room experience.

Here are a few ideas that will help make their actual or perceived wait time even less unpleasant (and more positive):

  • Display current or approximate waiting times.
  • Settle their pre-visit nerves by streaming entertainment they want to see.
  • Offer health and wellness reminder displays about taking medication correctly. Be sure to encourage follow-up interaction if they have any questions!
  • Share information about in-clinic or external supplementary treatment plans or products.
  • Engage them with QR technology that links to your patient portal and its features, a post-visit, patient-experience survey and more.

Do more with patient engagement activities combined with technology in medical waiting rooms

While it may take some planning and consideration to make content that is beneficial for your patients, the right patient engagement software can make it a whole lot simpler. 

After all, your engagement ideas and strategies are only as good as the tools used to make and display them. 

Create dynamic display content in the medical office waiting room

Your staff members work hard to create the best patient experience possible. But we all know many patients may take more time than usual to ask questions or seek clarification about basic processes or procedures. 

That’s where UPshow’s digital engagement software can step in to keep your patients informed and up to date. 

By utilizing your TV screens and monitors in the medical office waiting room, our content creation tools with Canva integration, including pre-designed templates, can help you do all of the following and more:

  • Display essential announcements, such as holiday hours, closings, new staff hires and additional services.
  • Promote lesser-utilized treatment options.
  • Announce community partnerships.
  • Highlight your social media channels to encourage continuing patient education and a patient-centric community.
  • Showcase mindfulness tips and practices to promote a stress-free waiting-room experience (and lifestyle).

Do it all with the right patient engagement activities software

Every patient is unique. Some will arrive at their appointment with a list of questions ready while others just want to get it over with as quickly as possible. 

You can meet all of your patients’ needs if you use the right patient engagement software in your medical waiting room. Here’s how:

Elevate your patients’ waiting room experience with UPshow

You spend limited time with your patients on their healthcare journey, making it that much more important to make every minute count. 

Incorporating opportunities for better engagement and an ideal patient experience —starting with your waiting room — is the best way to do just that.

UPshow’s on-premise digital marketing cloud software will allow you to offer customized, informative and engaging content every minute they’re in your waiting room. We welcome you to sign-up for our risk-free demo, so we can help you improve patient engagement in your waiting room.

Healthcare

What is Patient Engagement? What is the Importance of Patient Engagement in Healthcare

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Peer into your waiting room on any given day and notice what you see. Patients thumbing through old issues of National Geographic? Maybe they’re biting their nails and glancing at the clock. While others are half-listening to the local news as they wait to hear it’s their turn to see the doctor.

It’s not about what they’re doing but what they could be doing. You have a ripe opportunity to improve patient engagement before their appointment even begins. 

Whether their waiting time is five minutes or a half hour, your patients could channel that nervous energy elsewhere. Say, into watching an educational video about leading a healthy lifestyle, decompressing with trivia or seeking last-minute clarification with a nurse in your mobile-patient portal.   

Offering cutting-edge opportunities to improve patient engagement can empower them and have immediate, short-term and long-term benefits for their health outcomes.

What is patient engagement in healthcare?

Patient engagement refers to a patient’s proactive and continuous involvement in their healthcare. As in learning about, advocating for and making decisions that affect their health, wellness and treatment. Ideally, healthcare patient engagement involves an ongoing collaboration between a patient, their family and their healthcare team. 

Patient engagement is a two-way street. 

For medical practitioners, it means offering customized treatment plans, steady engagement and ongoing dialogue. Personalized patient experiences and educational opportunities can empower your patients and show your unwavering support on their wellness journey. Now, let’s look at a few patient engagement benefits.

Why is patient engagement so important?

Improving patient engagement increases patient satisfaction

The importance of patient engagement in healthcare cannot be understated. For example, engaging your patients with targeted and personalized care shows them they’re more than just another patient to you. In short, they’ll feel seen. As far as the benefits of patient engagement go, there aren’t many as important as this because it keeps patients invested in their own wellbeing.

Witnessing your commitment to their needs can empower them to approach you with their thoughts and concerns. They’ll also take a more vested and vocal interest in their wellness.

The outcome? 

Patients who are engaged and more satisfied with their quality of care. 

Increase patient engagement to improve adherence rates

What you and your patients agree to in your practice and what they do at home may not align. Maybe you’ve recommended they lead a more active lifestyle. Or that they avoid stressful situations. Unfortunately, a less engaged patient may not follow your treatment plan. 

In contrast, patients who are active in their wellness journey are more likely to take their medications and adhere to other mandatory or recommended treatments. High patient engagement can equate to personal ownership of their health. That’s a win-win across the board.

Improve patient engagement to enhance communication between providers & patients

Continuous and empathetic communication is a pillar component of high patient engagement. When patients understand their role as decision-makers and feel heard, they’re more likely to voice their opinions or concerns to their healthcare providers.

Increasing patient engagement reduces costs associated with hospitalization & readmission

The more engaged your patient is, the more in tune they likely are about their body and condition(s). For instance, they may recognize the difference between a severe matter and a typical symptom–deterring them from seeking urgent care and reducing medical costs. 

Likewise, if they spot an early warning sign, they might seek treatment immediately instead of ignoring it and letting it snowball. Which could lead to costly treatments and hospital stays down the road. 

Healthcare patient engagement boosts long-term health outcomes

High patient engagement often means an unspoken level of trust is in place. The patient and clinician listen to one another. As a result, the patient remains informed, seeks clarification when necessary and follows their customized treatment plan. 

When patients and healthcare providers work as a team, patients can make informed decisions about their health and ultimately achieve improved —even ideal — health outcomes.

How patient engagement systems enable patient engagement in healthcare

Not every patient will understand the importance of taking an active role in their healthcare—much less how to do it. So, you’ll want to reach them where they are with an effective patient engagement strategy. That’s where a patient engagement system comes into play.

What is a patient engagement system? 

A patient engagement system is an on-premise digital engagement technology that powers multiple strategies to keep patients informed, educated, entertained and connected with their healthcare providers. All while delivering a positive in-clinic patient experience and driving improved health outcomes.

What to look for in a patient engagement system 

You need a patient engagement system that will offer capabilities that will improve patient engagement and drive better health outcomes. Here’s what to look for in a top-tier patient engagement system:

Easy content creation

Your primary focus is patient care. So, look for a patient engagement system with straightforward content creation capabilities.  

UPshow’s Canva integration will allow you to easily deliver announcements, relevant health statistics, digital offerings like your clinic app or patient portal and more.

Insights and analytics

Patient engagement is all about trial and error. You need accurate insights to know what’s working and what isn’t for your patients and your practice. That’s critical if you want to make informed and targeted changes in the best interests of your patients.

UPshow’s data analytics will allow you to:

  • Measure the performance of your clinic’s on-screen content
  • Assess and track mobile-user engagement and performance
  • Use real-time engagement data to change educational and entertainment content
  • Export your data for in-depth analysis

Content scheduling and rotation

You have only so many hours in the day. When you choose a patient engagement system, opt for one that offers content scheduling capabilities.

UPshow’s Playlists allow you to control the content your patients see and when they see it.

Robust entertainment options

While patient education is essential, so is engagement in its purest form–entertainment! And entertainment can be just what the doctor ordered to calm some patients’ anxiety, at least temporarily.

UPshow offers over 500 channels of entertainment, including both local and streamable options.

Or, if you prefer to offer nerve-settling music, choose a patient engagement system with 50 stations of commercial-free music.

Ways to integrate other patient engagement tools

Let’s face it–everyone, including your patients, is always on their phones. Partnering with a patient engagement system that allows you to use that knowledge to drive patient engagement is ideal.

You can use UPshow’s QR code integration to encourage your patients to check in to reception upon arrival, link them to their patient portal app or complete a post-check-up survey.

How your patient engagement system can help you keep patients engaged

The sky’s the limit when it comes to leveraging your patient engagement system to engage your patients. If it’s winter, use your in-clinic digital displays to show flu-prevention practices. Have you released a new RX chat feature in your patient portal? Display a QR code your patients can scan to seek input.

Here are some of the many other ways you can use your patient engagement system to engage your patients:

  • Introduce new medical professionals in your practice
  • Offer a patient spotlight to encourage in-clinic community engagement
  • Broadcast the latest medical news and safety protocols
  • Showcase simple healthy recipes for a healthy lifestyle

UPshow can help you make a difference in your patient care 

Patient care doesn’t begin or end when a patient steps into your practice. Their wellness journey is ongoing. We understand that their health and treatment are your number one priority.

UPshow’s comprehensive patient engagement system can keep you connected with them every step of the way. We invite you to try our risk-free demo. It’s one thing to engage your patients, but it’s another to empower them to live their best lives.

Back-of-House

You Need to Rethink Your Restaurant Safety Training Practices

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Safety training is of paramount importance in any workplace, but it is especially important in the restaurant industry where employees are regularly expected to work around sharp blades and hot burners. 

Standard training techniques often include employee meetings, written safety materials or boring and outdated safety videos. These methods may have worked in the past, but today’s modern restaurant demands a different, more efficient approach to safety training.  

The Importance Of Safety Training

So we’ve established that safety training is important, but let’s take a moment to really dissect why it’s important to your restaurant.

At the top of the list; safety training helps prevent injuries or accidents in the workplace. Employees who are trained to do things like wear appropriate attire in the kitchen or simply in the act of placing no-slip mats on the floor go a long way to ensuring an accident-free workspace. 

This in turn goes a long way in increasing the safety of the workspace overall, as employees will become accustomed to looking out for potential hazards and either avoiding them or going out of their way to fix them before they become a problem. 

Proper safety training also helps ensure that your restaurant’s staff is familiar with your establishment’s safety protocols. This includes things like fire safety instruction and drills. This ensures that employees know what to do and where to go in the case of a fire or what to do during medical emergencies. 

Finally, proper safety training helps not only protect staff but also helps ensure the safety and comfort of your customers. This, in turn, reduces the risk of liability and the potential for lawsuits or other legal action due to potentially unsafe or hazardous working conditions.

Restaurant safety tips to use in your training

Use Your Signage

Many accidents that occur in the workplace happen because of ‘undisclosed hazards’. These tend to be things like damaged flooring or spills that have been recently cleaned and have not had time to dry yet.

When training your employees, stress to them the importance of utilizing the hazard signage in your restaurant, and to ensure the others in the workplace are aware of potential hazards around them. For long-term procedural changes or safety notices, displaying alerts on your BOH screens is another easy way to signpost.

Stress The Importance Of Cleanliness

Not only does an unclean kitchen pose a health risk to your customers, but it also poses an immediate hazard to anyone working in that environment.

Slips and falls can occur from unclean floors, unwashed pans can potentially catch fire depending on what was in them and unclean knives will have a tendency to dull and slip when used. Remember: cleanliness is one of the key components of a safe kitchen. 

Make Sure Staff Takes Breaks

Tired team members make mistakes, and mistakes made in the high-pressure environment of a restaurant can lead to unsafe conditions. Make sure your employees know the importance of taking a break to rest and catch their second wind before diving back into the fray.

Use the right tools to meet restaurant safety standards 

The restaurant business is fast-paced and hectic, posing challenges in training both the front-of-house (FOH) team and the back-of-house (BOH) employees. Digital signage is the wave of the future when it comes to training your employees in safety protocols, and is one of the most efficient methods of disseminating training materials.

Integrating informational videos and graphics into your BOH signage can allow employees to absorb the training over a full shift, catching what they need to know in between getting orders out. 

You can also utilize infographics and awareness messages to ensure that your employees stay informed about what safety procedures are and how they should be implemented. 

Other useful tools for keeping your training up to date include online tests and training materials distributed through your BOH signage. UPshow Connect makes it easy to incorporate QR code technology into your digital signage so you can provide your employees with an easy method for connecting to those training materials through their mobile devices.

Rotate content to keep employees across shifts in the loop 

Even the best training becomes useless if you don’t get it to all your employees. This makes it important to rotate safety training content, ensuring that all shifts receive the information they need. 

It’s also important to keep your training materials current and up to date, as safety training cannot be approached with a ‘one-and-done’ attitude. Retention fades and training dulls unless it is refreshed regularly. UPshow allows you to schedule content rotation in minute detail on your digital signage, ensuring that none of your employees lack knowledge of your restaurant’s safety procedures.

What else can UPshow SHIFT do for you?

Connect with your point of sale system 

UPshow SHIFT can connect directly to your point of sale system and allows you to track key performance indicators across the board. This can be integrated into your digital signage or BOH systems in a variety of ways.

By integrating with your POS system, you can easily identify which shifts or team members are upselling or promoting targeted menu items. It makes it that much easier to keep your employees performing efficiently and safely. 

Keep employees engaged 

Employees learn better when they are engaged and invested in the materials being offered to them. UPshow SHIFT offers a variety of ways to provide just that type of engagement to your employees when delivering training and materials to them.

Creating training quizzes and linking them to a QR code in your digital signage allows your employees to access those quizzes on their mobile devices on their own time, without shift leads needing to track them down. They’ll have immediate access to engagement metrics, so they can tell how many staff members have completed their training.

UPshow also integrates with Canva, a popular online graphics creation program. Utilizing this powerful combination allows you to create things like an employee recognition program for employees who have strong kitchen safety records.

You can also disseminate and receive back employee surveys in much the same manner. This can help you determine where your employees believe your training materials are strong, and where they may be lacking.

Make safety training a part of your back-of-house training processes

UPshow SHIFT is the premiere digital signage software for BOH safety training.

Starting with UPshow is easy, all it takes is connecting your display to the software either through a hardwire connection or by running it directly on a wifi-enabled screen. It makes it easier than ever to provide your employees with the quality training they need to excel at their jobs, all while staying safe. Want to find out how UPshow can help your BOH team members? UPshow offers free demos so schedule yours today!

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