How to use digital signage to improve your care home [+VIDEO]
Running a care home, nursing homes, senior care facilities or assisted living facility is a big responsibility. You have to make sure residents are happy and healthy at all times. Family members need to feel assured that their loved ones are getting the care that they need.
Then you have to plan activities and meals for all of the residents. You have to make sure that they’re getting the medications they need. This can be a hard job if you don’t have a convenient way to communicate with all residents, visitors, and staff at all times.
Care home digital signage is becoming more popular every day for this reason. But how can digital signage help your home facility? Where do you place these signs?
Digital signage can have a major impact on your residents quality of life and ensure all residents and staff members have a clear understanding of upcoming events, safety and security procedures and (in the event of an emergency) up-to-date vital information.
That’s why you should read on for ten great reasons why your care home facility needs digital signage.
Helping Visitors Find Their Way Around
Use your digital signage for wayfinding. This can help visitors find their way around your facility. Large, general signage can let visitors know which direction their loved one’s room is in.
You can also place smaller digital signage outside residents’ rooms that gives the room number and occupant information. Visitors will be able to find them easily if this is the case.
This will also benefit new staff members and residents. These people won’t know your facility as well, so they’re going to need some help getting around during their first few weeks. Digital signage helps them by showing them where they are at all times.
Meal Schedules
Some residents might be forgetful but still want to know what their next meal is going to be. Building signage with up to date meal time information by using our free Menu Marketplace app you can make sure your menu information is visible and easy to read.
This gives residents a chance to repeatedly see what is on the menu for the next meal.
Your facility might even post the meal schedule for an entire week if you wish. This would let residents know when they can expect their favourite meals to be served early. Oftentimes, this gives them something to look forward to.
Entertainment
You can also use digital signage for entertaining messages for staff and visitors to enjoy. This boosts morale and gives everyone something to look forward to when they wake up in the morning.
Visitors will also appreciate the humour when they come. They’ll be glad to know that the environment that their loved ones are in is a happy and safe one.
Customisable
Digital signage often needs to be somewhat personal depending on where the signage is placed. Some messages might not be relevant to parts of your facility. Some residents might have more difficulty reading small prints.
This means that each digital sign needs to be customisable. The good news is that this is completely possible to do!
You can have some screens display larger fonts for low-vision residents. The same content can be added or mixed with additional zones of content across your location without duplicating efforts.
You can basically display any messages you choose wherever you’d like. This makes it easy to get announcements to the right people as well.
Staff Communication
When you’re working in a care home, having access to staff will be extremely important. You never know when an emergency is going to happen or if a staff member will simply need assistance with a resident. So you need a good method of care home community communication.
Digital signage provides an easy way for staff to get messages to each other. This can let staff know when something needs to change with a resident’s medications or diet. It can allow residents to reach staff quickly when they need assistance.
It can also let staff inform residents of any schedule or meal changes for that day. And above all, it lets your staff give the care they should be providing.
Activity Schedules
Planning activities for your residents won’t help too much if they don’t know about them. So you need a way to get that information out to all residents at once. And it needs to be a place where they’ll see it repeatedly.
The good news is that digital signage is a good way to make sure this happens. You can place the activity schedule for the week on your residents’ digital signs. You can display which activities will be happening that day or for the whole week to give residents more notice.
This way residents can plan which activities they’d like to go to. It gives non-mobile residents time to get there as well.
Announcements
Occasionally, you might have an unplanned event happen at your facility. For example, maybe a staff member brought a cake in for all of the residents to enjoy. This lets you get a message out to residents quickly for unexpected treats like this.
It can also be used to make announcements such as updates to daily routine or a birthday. You can even use them to introduce new staff members.
Whatever the case, it’s often necessary to make new announcements to all staff and residents. Digital signage can act as a bulletin board for all announcements such as these. In some cases, it’s the only way that everyone in the building would know about them.
Residents, visitors, and staff will all thank you when they know that there are boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the lobby for residents to take.
Emergency Alerts
Emergency announcements can be made over digital signage as well. This is important because residents in a care home facility can have any number of emergencies.
If a resident falls and can’t get up, a button push can alert staff to the problem so they can get help quickly. If a resident starts to have a stroke or other medical emergency, then staff can respond quickly if sensors in the area are activated.
If the building needs to be evacuated or locked down, these signs can also display instructions for residents and staff. Your facility should of course be having drills for such events on a regular basis. But some residents might be new or suffer from memory problems.
These signs ensure that both staff and residents know exactly what to do in case of emergencies. This helps reduce panic and gets your residents to safety quickly.
This can also give family members peace of mind that their loved ones will be well taken care of in your facility. It shows that you care about their well-being enough to ensure quick responses to emergencies.
Reminders
Finally, you can post reminders of events and activities that are happening that day on your digital signs. This allows your more forgetful residents to get an idea of what all is happening in your facility.
It gives residents a chance to get to social events in the facility on time so they can enjoy everything you have to offer. It’s a convenient place for them to see these reminders.
Also, it gives your staff reminders of what events are going on to help residents get to them. This will improve the general flow of your facility since staff and residents know where to be and when.
You can also use these signs to remind staff and residents of any changes that are happening. If you’re renovating a specific wing of your facility, for example, you don’t necessarily want staff members or residents going to that part of the building until construction is finished. This can just be dangerous for both staff and residents.
Posting reminders on your digital signs can remind everyone that that area is off-limits for the time being. Then when the construction is done, you can use the signage again to invite everyone to go and see the work that was done.
Get Care Home Digital Signage Today
If you’re in charge of a home care facility, then you need to have care home digital signage for your residents and staff. It’s a convenient way to get all sorts of messages and reminders out to everyone in your facility.
And the best place to get it is at Signagelive. Our experts are here to help you plan your care home signage right now. We’ll help you decide how many screens you need and where to place them.
Home care digital signage can add convenience and safety for all residents and staff. So what are you waiting for?
Get in touch today and see what we can do for your facility.
