University Hospitals show support using Signagelive digital signage

University Hospitals has rolled out a Signagelive-powered Digital Signage network to support its vast community of 5,000 healthcare professionals. Spanning 21 hospitals across Ohio in the US, the initiative encompasses a total of 82 screens and 80 BrightSign devices, providing a vital, centralised platform for employee communications. Through the system, University Hospitals can now offer a more accessible way to keep staff informed of important initiatives, events, and health-related policies, as well as the latest news and inspiring patient stories.

“This Signagelive-powered solution has been a really good investment,” says Josh Petro, Unified Communications Architect at University Hospitals in Cleveland. “It’s been great to have a communications outlet that enables us to powerfully get information across to our people and raise awareness of important staff updates. Signagelive has already had a significant impact, helping to ensure our caregivers don’t miss sign-ups, enrolments, and the latest health regulations and practices we enforce for things like Covid.”
Before the installation of this Signagelive-powered network, the challenge was, states Petro, trying to communicate with staff, who, as caregivers, rarely spend their time checking emails: “Ninety per cent of their time is actually spent helping patients. This made traditional digital communications pretty ineffective for us.”

The success of Digital Signage in the University Hospitals’ cafeterias pointed to the potential of this alternative medium, but the problem was that the current system couldn’t be easily adapted and scaled out for employee communications. So, a new system had to be found – one that was, as per University Hospitals’ policy, “simple, intuitive and mobile”.

Petro explains, “From an IT perspective, it needed to have a single pane glass, where we could look at all aspects of both players, content and management of the content that allows us to put things out there effectively. From a user standpoint – that is, in our case, from the standpoint of our two marketing gurus, it just had to be something they could jump into, and not have to fight the system every time they used it. Trying to find a platform that checked all those boxes was really the impetus to get Signagelive installed.”

As a centralised platform, Signagelive enables teams to create, manage and schedule content to one, some or all the screens in a network from absolutely anywhere.

Return on investment

As Digital Signage is often, to stakeholders and boards, still, in Petro’s words, a “nebulous concept”, it was imperative to show that this cloud-based Digital Signage could deliver an immediate return on investment.

The Signagelive system has quickly proven to do so. The fact that doctor directories across buildings now no longer need to be manually updated every time there is a staff change or switch of location has already, in and of itself, enabled University Hospitals to make significant cost-savings. Additionally, the smooth running of the system from the start has also helped allay concerns.

But most importantly, University Hospitals’ decision to utilise QR codes to measure the success and impact of content has given the stakeholders the hard data they need to see the value. By enabling caregivers to scan on-screen QR codes for updates, and enrolments, the University Campus team can now track engagement for the content, and even, find out which updates perform better.

Employee appreciation

Aside from the practical need to keep staff in the loop and make it easier for them to sign up for important events, the cloud-based Digital Signage has been especially useful in the bid to show employee appreciation. Sharing inspiring patient stories underscores the importance of the work staff all do and shines a well-deserved spotlight on its results. Petro’s says, “Now, with this system, we can help make sure that our healthcare teams understand that they’re appreciated and the impact they have on their patients’ lives, just because it is profound. You’re touching a person, when they’re at their worst time of their life, potentially.”

Future plans

University Campus is already looking at building on the network, potentially by rolling out additional Signagelive-powered meeting room Digital Signage. Thanks to the platform’s integration with Barco ClickShare, University College has the option of using ClickShare Wireless and Presentation devices as meeting room Digital Signage players. This means that, not only can they be used for wireless collaboration, but also to deliver Digital Signage. No additional screens or software are required.

As well as planning to use the system to share more feel-good patient stories, University Hospitals is considering expanding the network for patient-facing areas. The system can then be used for wayfinding, and even to support revenue streams through the advertisement of additional patient services.

Digital Signage advice

Petro’s advice for any organisation looking to find and deploy Digital Signage is to research all available options thoroughly: “For anyone curious about how they should go about the process, I would just say do your research and make sure that you understand the capabilities of the companies you’re considering using. Not all assigned vendors are created equal and we definitely found that out. So, don’t be afraid to ask for as many proofs of concepts as you need to ensure that the platform you choose definitely fits the needs of your organisation. Any decision you make should be led by the business and its ultimate objectives.”

If you would like to find out more about how Signagelive cloud-based Digital Signage could help your business, please reach out to us.