Enhancing patient experience across the patient journey can lead to better outcomes

The pandemic has changed patient expectations across their entire healthcare experience. Healthcare organizations of all sizes have responded as best as they could by creating new hybrid care models. These new models come with an emphasis on enhancing the patient experience across the care continuum. This includes everything from providing access to virtual visits and patient portals to on-site TV streaming and entertainment services on patient and visitor mobile devices in hospitals, waiting rooms, offices and labs.

Emergency safety measures, fears of potential COVID exposure, and convenience drove the increased desire for virtual visits. Patient portals have been gaining in importance and usage for several years now, as much for their 24-hour access to personal health information as for ease in scheduling appointments, tests, and requesting new or refilled prescriptions.                  

But entertainment? Should hospitals and clinics really worrying about what patients and guests are streaming, or watching on TV?  Yes, they should — because hospitals and health systems can replicate the ways in which patients access content at home, thereby improving the patient experience, by offering streaming TV. This enables patients and visitors to use their own devices to watch the On-Demand TV programming they want, on their own time, their own terms, anywhere that WiFi exists in your facility.  In fact, patients and guests can even watch different content while sitting in the same room.

Offering streaming TV access is an easy way to increase Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores, bring additional comfort to patients, and improve outcomes. According to a HIMSS survey, 58 percent of healthcare organizations view patient satisfaction surveys, such as HCAHPS, as the biggest indicator of success. Healthcare organizations have long used patient satisfaction and experience as a way to determine the quality of healthcare they’re providing — and with good reason. Strong patient satisfaction scores correlate to better clinical outcomes, reimbursement rates and patient retention.

With 92 percent of technology leaders in healthcare seeking to improve patient experience through digital transformation, those leaders should consider that hospital TVs and streaming options can help distract, entertain and create a sense of normalcy for patients — and help drive a positive patient experience. When patients can watch their preferred programming, it can bring a familiar source of comfort while away from home. Visitors, too, benefit from the entertainment offered in rooms, waiting areas and outpatient clinical settings. 

Helping patients and visitors pass the time 

There’s a lot of downtime for patients and guests when visiting a healthcare facility — waiting for results, waiting for their doctor, waiting to undergo some sort of test. For example, the average physician’s office waiting time is 18 minutes¹, while the average emergency room wait time is 40 minutes².  Those wait times many not seem so bad when they’re spending that time consuming interesting content. Alternatively, patients can play games, check email, and check in on social media to help alleviate some of the stress and anxiety that comes with waiting.

According to Joseph Gunnells, IT Technical Manager at Hospice Buffalo, “People don’t think a television could be that important,” he explains, “But it really is. It comforts the patient. They can watch TV, and that’s important when there’s nowhere to go. When you’re restricted to bed, it’s key that our TV service is up 100 percent of the time.”

In addition to the entertainment value, providers can leverage TV technology to enhance their care and improve outcomes. With custom content insertion and integration with interactive patient systems, TVs can display patient information, access to patient portals, as well as branded elements customized to specific facilities.

Health education, easily accessed through TVs in patient rooms, is another simple way to increase patient engagement, providing information needed to manage conditions and avoid readmission. Some health education systems even choose to let providers know if and when specific patients have viewed important material.

Streaming content can have profound effects on the patient experience. Multiple Sclerosis patient, Kate Milliken, shared her story of becoming an empowered patient by staying connected. She describes the accessibility with her medical team via streaming technology as a game changer.

It’s an easy improvement

One of the best things about adding streaming TV access to your facility is that no coax wiring or rewiring is required, and no expensive head-end and transcoding equipment is needed. Streaming services are delivered via an IP connection, which amplifies reliability and drives cost savings on equipment as well as maintenance. Further, since there is virtually no strategic IT involvement, a healthcare facility’s typically stretched IT staffers can take one more item off their plates.

Find out more about TV streaming access in healthcare facilities. 

1. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180322005683/en/9th-Annual-Vitals-Wait-Time-Report-Released
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/why-are-wait-times-so-long-in-emergency-rooms/2020/05/29/405204b8-a056-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html