When it comes to patient engagement tools, healthcare providers certainly don’t lack choices. Among the many solutions that want your business, “freemium” software platforms promise to deliver value without charging your clinic a single penny.
Unfortunately, you end up paying for these freemium services in other ways, even if you avoid upfront costs. Freemium digital signage often takes over your screens with irrelevant content, unhelpful information and advertising sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, ruining your attempts to improve the patient experience. The right tool will always be worth the money. Paying for your healthcare digital signage solution eliminates unwanted advertising, gives you total control of your displays and might even save you money. Here’s how:
Eliminate Unwanted Advertising
“Free” healthcare digital signage companies still need to make money. So, if you don’t pay them, who does? Usually, large pharmaceutical companies foot the bill in exchange for the opportunity to advertise their products on your screens. Instead of keeping patients engaged, your screens subject them to endless ads for medications that may or may not apply to them. Additionally, if patients believe you endorse this off-topic advertising, they may get the impression that your clinic prioritizes revenue above care.
When you use freemium solutions, you aren’t the vendor’s customer: you’re their product. Only by paying for your digital signage solution do you become a customer. As a customer, the provider has your agenda in mind, not a pharmaceutical company’s, guaranteeing a more engaging experience for patients.
Control Your Content
Removing advertising speaks to a larger benefit of paid healthcare digital signage: total control. Your clinic decides what to show on your screens and when to show it, allowing you to tailor your content to what’s most relevant for your audience. A dentist’s office can reduce pre-appointment anxiety by sharing fun facts about its doctors. An OB-GYN clinic may choose to educate pregnant patients about postpartum physical therapy. Some platforms even let you schedule content based on which patients visit during a given day.
From sharing doctor bios to displaying educational trivia, controlling your digital signage serves your clinic and patients first.
Full Service Signage Can Reduce Costs
Paid signage doesn’t necessarily mean increasing costs; in fact, a comprehensive engagement tool actually cuts costs by allowing you to consolidate various software needs into a single tool. Healthcare digital signage should keep patients engaged by educating, promoting and entertaining. A full service tool that addresses all these factors means it can even replace expensive, easily ignored waiting room remedies like cable.
Furthermore, the best patient engagement and digital signage tools provide in-platform analytics so you can measure the impact and return on investment of all of your on-screen promotions, education and engagement strategies.
Free healthcare platforms market themselves as a great deal. Clinics must recognize that these companies profit from hidden costs, do little to keep patients engaged and ultimately harm your patient experience. Paying a high-quality vendor results in better healthcare digital signage and a tool built with your best interests in mind. Want to see the difference? Ask us for a free demo today.
