WiFi in Hospitals – Improving the Patient Care Experience

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when visiting a hospital or emergency waiting room? A clean, well lit, area to sit? Access to staff? How about WiFi?

Access to WiFi in waiting rooms is one of the recommendations in a report justreleased by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. WiFi in hospitals and patient waiting rooms is categorised as a “Developmental” standard in the RCEM report. Services in this category aren’t required for patients and staff but serve as goals over and above services in the “Fundamental” category, such as access to a TV and a properly staffed waiting area.

As Dr. Taj Hassan, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, explained when the report was released: “We have also suggested some initiatives and ideas for departments to develop for patients, that we hope will add just that little bit extra to patient experience.”

By combining their Guest WiFi experience with a WiFi analytics tool, hospitals and waiting rooms can go even farther in enhancing the patient experience. What’s the average wait time a user spends in a waiting area? What’s the gender breakdown? Are users accessing the WiFi on mobile, tablets or laptops? This last insight would further enhance the waiting room experience. For example, if a hospital noticed that more guests are accessing hospital WiFi over mobile or tablets, USB sockets for recharging would be a simple and quick waiting area upgrade, leading to an enhanced patient experience. How about a quick survey on a branded splash page before users log in? Helping hospital and waiting room staff understand their patients and their families needs.

Work for a hospital and want to improve your patients experience?

Do you have any experience you would like to share? Please leave it on the comments below.

Click here to get started.