Improving patient engagement is a great goal for a dental clinic to have. But it can be tough to accomplish in practice.
If you’re not reaching your patient engagement goals yet, then making a strategic investment in the right technology could solve that problem. It’s why you should take a look at digital signage in clinics.
Digital signage helps health clinics improve patient engagement in numerous ways. Keep reading to get the specifics of using dental clinic signage.
Patient engagement explained!
Patient engagement is the process of activating an individual so that they become a more active participant in managing their health. It involves encouraging a patient to take ownership of their health and make better decisions to look after it.
Benefits of digital signage in healthcare clinics
Patient engagement is valuable because it’s associated with better health outcomes. For example, a patient who is an engaged and active participant in managing their health will need fewer ER visits.
On top of that, engaged patients tend to show up for their appointments much more often, which can limit the financial impact of no-shows for your medical clinic.
Finally, it’s easier for a dental clinic to retain engaged patients because relationships with these individuals are generally superior. And if you can retain more of your patients, you shouldn’t have to spend as much on marketing to attract new ones.
Understanding digital signage in medical clinics
Before diving into how you can use digital signage in a clinic to increase patient engagement, let’s first make sure we’re on the same page about what it is.
Digital signage is a technology that typically consists of three parts:
- Screens (like TVs and tablets)
- Digital signage software
- Digital signage player (not always needed if you’re using smart screens)
Health clinics use digital signage for tons of useful things. You can use them to share important information with your patients, keep them entertained and much more.
How to increase patients in clinics with digital signage
Healthcare technology is one of the best ways to boost patient engagement. Digital dental clinic signage is the perfect example of why this is true. Here are six ways that you can use it to improve your engagement numbers.
Share important health information on medical digital signage
Digital signage makes it easier to share vital health information with your audience. It does so in a few different ways.
First, digital signage lets you use a single screen to rotate through as many displays as you want on whatever schedule you want. This enables a clinic to share more health information with less space.
Additionally, when you share health information on a digital screen, it’s much easier to engage your audience. Digital screens allow you to use animations, high-resolution imagery and other attention-grabbing features to increase the number of patients who see what you’re sharing.
Collectively, these features make digital signage one of the most effective ways to share health information with your patients. And when your patients are more knowledgeable about various aspects of their health, they tend to become more engaged.
Direct patients to health resources
Some of your patients may want to become more engaged with their health but don’t know where to turn to get started. That’s why you may also want to use digital signage in a medical clinic to direct those patients to various health resources.
For example, you might partner with a local gym to get a discount on memberships for your patients. Digital signage is the perfect way for you to advertise something like that.
Advertise your digital offerings
One of the best ways to keep your patients engaged is to give them ways to stay in touch with your clinic even when they’re not visiting you in person. Things like telehealth and patient portals are great for this.
You can also use your digital signage to advertise these types of services. Doing so could increase the number of patients who use the services, which could, in turn, help you boost the overall engagement numbers of your patient population.
Instruct patients on the importance of engagement
Many of your patients may not realize why it’s important for them to engage with their healthcare process in the first place. If that’s true, it’s very unlikely that one of these patients would put the effort in to become engaged on their own.
It’s why you may also want to use digital signage in your clinic to teach your patients about the importance of staying engaged.
Highlight the best technologies for staying engaged
You can also use your digital signage to teach your patients about some of the best technologies that they can use to make staying engaged easier.
This includes consumer health devices like Fitbits and Apple Watches, which make it easy to record health information at home.
Using your digital signage to explain why these things can be so helpful could get more of your patients using them, which should increase your engagement rate.
Minimize barriers to care
Digital dental clinic signage can also minimize your patients’ perceived barrier to care, which would make them more likely to visit you enough to remain engaged. There are two main ways that you can do this.
First, digital signage makes your waiting room a better place. You can use it to stream movies, TV shows and other types of entertainment to keep your patients engaged while they wait. When you provide your patients with a more enjoyable waiting room experience, they’ll be more likely to want to come back to your clinic consistently.
You can also use digital signage as check-in kiosks so that patients don’t have to wait in line to check-in during a visit. This frees up your staff to focus on other tasks, which could bring down your waiting times and remove another perceived barrier to care that patients may have.
Other reasons to use digital dental clinic signage
It’s also worth mentioning that digital signage can help your clinic with more than patient engagement. Here are several additional reasons why investing in this technology could be the right move for your healthcare clinic.
Digital signage in clinics is versatile
One of the best aspects of digital signage is its versatility. It enables you to use a single display for marketing, entertainment, information and engagement. You can rotate through displays for each of these purposes at whatever pace you want. That empowers you to do more with less.
Frees up time for your staff
You can also set up your digital signage to handle several tasks that your staff members would otherwise need to do on their own. This includes checking patients in, keeping them updated on wait times and answering questions about your procedures and services.
These little time-savers add up quickly and could provide your staff with a lot of extra time to work on their most important obligations. The net impact should be that you’re able to provide your patients with a better overall experience at your clinic.
Opens up new possibilities for in-clinic marketing
Digital signage is also one of the most effective ways to market your services to people who are already at your clinic. It’s a super-effective way to showcase new offerings, highlight their benefits and tell patients how they can take advantage of them.
For example, you could use digital signage to stream TV shows in your waiting area to keep patients engaged. Instead of allowing normal commercials to play in between these shows, you could advertise some of the services that your clinic offers.
It’s another example of how digital signage empowers you to get more out of technology and processes that your clinic is going to use anyway.
Share information about community health trends on your dental clinic signage
Clinics can also use their digital signage to keep patients informed about the latest health trends in their communities.
For example, when flu season arrives, you can tell patients that they may be at a greater risk for catching it in the coming months and teach them what they can do to stay healthy.
This is another strategy you can use to provide your patients with a superior healthcare experience.
UPshow makes it easier to unlock the full potential of digital signage in clinics
Using digital signage in clinics will give you access to numerous avenues for boosting the engagement of your patients. Use it effectively and you could begin increasing your patient retention numbers by improving the health outcomes that you provide and the relationships that patients have with your care providers.
But if you want to get as much out of your digital signage investment as possible, you need the right software to manage your displays. That’s where UPshow comes in.
Our digital signage software is ideal for healthcare clinics. It makes it incredibly easy to create, share and manage a wide variety of displays from any internet-enabled device.So why not give it a chance? You can sign up for a free custom demo of UPshow today to get a firsthand look at exactly how beneficial it can be for your practice.
