The healthcare industry is one of the biggest, and it provides care, assistance, and medical remedies for patients looking for answers to their health issues. From the many different departments in hospitals, private healthcare practices, to quick in-and-out health services and physical check-ups, there are lots of moving parts to the industry, which is why having informed and trained staff is crucial.
While email is still one of the most common ways to communicate with staff, it’s easy for your inbox to become overloaded and important messages to be missed. Digital signage is an inventive way to boost internal communications, promote a positive workplace culture, deliver policy updates, and even provide effective training within the healthcare industry to ensure that patients have the best customer service and care possible.
Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to use digital signage for internal marketing within the healthcare industry and create a team of knowledgeable and reliable staff who stay informed!
1. Safety Policies and Compliances
Having safety reminders with the company’s policies and compliances is a great way to make sure both staff and patients stay safe!
One of the most important compliances to follow within the healthcare industry is ensuring that your staff know all of the safety and hygiene protocols that are routine for the industry. Making sure that you keep patients and other staff members safe if crucial, as is creating content for these safety and hygiene protocols.
For example, proper hand washing techniques are one of the best reminders to add to any digital signage screen to avoid the spread of bacteria and germs to highly sensitive or high-risk patients or to common areas of a hospital.
2. Tools to Improve Guest Experience
Taking care of patients in the hospital and outside is crucial to improve guest experiences!
One of the most important things that many patients consider after their stay in a hospital or going in for an appointment is how well they were treated. Improving the guest/patient experience is important for hospitals because it can help them receive more positive feedback and mend their mistakes to provide better care.
With digital signage, you can add tips and tricks to improve the guest/patient experience, such as providing clear communication, direct and clear-cut discharge plans, set up follow-up dates, gauge staff responsiveness, and even ways to create a more comfortable environment.
3. Improved Training and Microlearning
Training sessions can be more interactive using digital signage through QR codes!
Training sessions within the healthcare industry can be very redundant and boring, but they are useful to help set reminders to keep staff and patients safe, learn proper PPE tactics, and even open new doors for opportunities on services and treatments. Digital signage is a great way to incorporate training for staff but in a fun, interactive way.
Many content management systems (CMS) allow you to incorporate QR codes to scan and access training quizzes, access compliance documentation, watch safety videos, or even to go through microlearning modules. Microlearning paired with digital signage also gives staff more interactive learning opportunities at the staff’s own pace in a short time span.
4. Wellness Tips and Resources
Healthcare workers need just as much help as their patients when it comes to their wellness!
It’s crucial to remind your healthcare staff to take care of themselves, and digital signage wellness tips can do the trick.
Healthcare workers work day-in and day-out to take care of the patients that visit the hospital or practice that they work at to ensure that they’re helping to properly diagnose their medical issues and provide the right treatment. It’s also crucial for healthcare workers to take care of themselves just as much as their patients, and providing health and wellness tips and resources is another form of incredible digital signage content to create.
Whether you create wellness tips that staff can consider adding to their routine, or provide information on their benefits to contact HR about, these are some simple ways to help improve the well-being of your team.
5. Staff Onboarding and Referrals
The healthcare industry is constantly looking for more employees and staff onboarding and referral offers can make for great content!
The healthcare industry has a high turnover rate in staff ranging from 18% to 23% annually. While it can be hard for many hospitals and private practices to keep staff, there are ways that can help to bring in new team members with the help of current employees. Some great content to create for internal marketing digital signage is announcements for new hire onboarding with referral bonuses. Staff members can refer their friends or family members that work in the healthcare industry and both parties can receive a money bonus depending on how long they stay there.
Another way to boost staff morale is to help new hires feel welcome with content that makes them feel a part of the team. Welcoming them through digital signage can also help get current staff members familiar with the new hire and their background and make introductions less intimidating.
6. Quick and Informational Updates
Bypass sifting through your email for important updates when digital signage can share them efficiently!
Healthcare workers are constantly running around, tending to patients, filling out paperwork, and being active, so finding time to check emails is difficult. Important company updates, policies, and other information can often be overlooked or completely buried in your email. Thankfully digital signage is an easy solution to get company news and updates out quickly for everyone to see.
If there are important updates that you’re afraid your staff may miss, digital signage is the best way to show it. Add it to high-traffic areas that they also frequent, such as common areas and break rooms, to get out important company information that needs quick responses. This proves just how much digital signage can automate and make daily operations run much smoother.
7. Communication and Empathy Tips
Depending on the situation, some patients may need to hear bad news, which is why compassion, empathy, and kindness are appreciated!
The healthcare industry is not for the faint of heart. There are both good and bad things that happen everyday—babies are born and many others lose their lives due to natural causes or devastating tragedies. No matter the situation, it’s important to show your patients some compassion, kindness, and empathy for both the good and the bad.
Digital signage can be a great reminder to staff to take a step back from a stressful day they may be experiencing to show some compassion and empathy to a patient or loved one who is having a hard time. Clear communication is something that hospital patients and guests will always appreciate, along with medical recommendations, and supporting people no matter their situation. Simple reminders to show kindness, go above and beyond to help your patients, so making sure to give them clear communication is crucial for digital signage in order to see improvement within your team.
8. Staff Recognition and Achievements
Do you have staff that was recently promoted, obtained a new degree, or want to recognize them for an act of kindness? Add it to the digital signage screen!
When you’re looking for ways to improve the internal marketing of your hospital or private practice, one of the best ways to do so is by boosting overall staff morale. Happy staff can lead to a more successful business, higher retention rates, and it leaves employees feeling valued for the hard work that they put in each shift.
Some incredible digital signage content to create that can make a difference in your staff and should revolve around recognition, appreciation, and achievements. If you have a staff member that recently got promoted, make sure to mention it through the internal digital signage screen, along with employee of the month, staff birthdays and work anniversaries, and even let your staff recognize each other with a unique QR code to nominate their coworkers.
Choosing the Right CMS Platform: How Shift Can Be Revolutionary For the Healthcare Industry
Shift’s content management system can help with marketing in the healthcare industry, among many other positive benefits too!
There’s no doubt that digital signage can improve staff morale and internal marketing in the healthcare industry, but the tricky part is deciding which content management system (CMS) is the best fit. From scalability, promoting brand awareness, remote management, and even pre-made templates, there are a number of CMS platforms to choose from, but Shift is among the top-rated in boosting employee engagement and internal communications.
What is Shift?
Many businesses are constantly go-go-go without skipping a beat, but sometimes this can create a lack of relationships with staff. Employees want to feel appreciated and valued within their job and are seeking this confirmation, along with constructive criticism, and job advancements within a company.
Shift is a CMS platform that can be easily paired with digital signage that aims to help deepen relationships with staff members, embrace how valuable they are through recognition spotlights and shoutouts, and also improve internal communications to avoid cluttered email inboxes.
Shift utilizes their unique tool, the Content Navigator, to allow users to freely create, edit, manage, and schedule their content using remote management capabilities to make all aspects of content creation easier. While Shift focuses on creating content for the hard workers behind the scenes of a healthcare industry with proper communication, it can also be used in the front of the house for customers, patients, guests, and even for navigation purposes–among many other uses too!
What Can You Do With Shift’s Features?
We’re glad you asked! Shift has a ton of unique features and ways around content creation to make something that will stand out and resonate with your staff. Some of the best features and content ideas that Shift offers includes the following:
- Boost employee engagement through recognition and appreciation
- Celebrate staff birthdays, work anniversaries, and other achievements
- Show training videos
- Employee spotlights
- Interactive polls for staff to anonymously complete
- Expands internal communications
- Allows staff to retrain and re-skill in key trainings
- Helps leaders learn more about staff
- Encourages employees to do work harder
- Increases productivity
- Create diverse content using pictures, videos, or documents
- Use as a wayfinding and navigation system
- Broadcast company announcements, updated policies, etc.
- Use to post emergency alerts
- Streamline workflow and post frequent updates about each day’s tasks
Select Shift For Your New Internal Marketing Strategy in Healthcare and See the Change in Your Staff
Your hospital’s practices can’t change without the help of your staff to make the patient and guest experience go above and beyond. With the proper safety policies and compliances in place, wellness tips and resources, improved training tactics, and even staff recognition, digital signage can help to change the healthcare industry one screen at a time.
Consider incorporating Shift into your internal marketing strategies for a hospital or private practice in the healthcare industry today!
