Browse all PDi articles

Do your TV technology choices align with your patient populations today, and keep up with the future demands? Traditional antenna TV, satellite or cable, streaming video services, video on demand and other options exist for medical facilities, just like at home. Digital broadcasting options are endless these days! However, do you think about how TV investments in your hospital or clinic match with how people consume TV at home?  Entertainment is a great way to keep patients distracted and satisfied while in the hospital or sitting for a long appointment, such as dialysis or infusion. 

Healthcare staff are often overwhelmed and pulled in many different directions; all while being expected to provide quality care to their patients. If you could save staff time in their busy workday, wouldn’t you? PDi wants to make healthcare employee’s days a little easier by providing smart patient entertainment solutions that add value for patients and easily build efficiency into staff routines. 

Communication is the heart of patient experience. Yet, in a time of visitor restrictions in hospitals, how can you use smart TVs to help build connections with your patients now and in the future?

Technology and patient experience go hand in hand. We’ve all come to expect that smart technology is integrated into our work, shopping, homes, and even in our healthcare experiences. While technology is beneficial in healthcare, it’s important to remain personal, meaning that providers still give patient-centered care. 

Do you want your patients to have the best experience possible at your unique healthcare facility or hospital space?

Choose interactive patient TV technology solutions that are customizable to your needs and grow with you as your facility’s needs change for patient education and engagement.

• Provide access to your quality patient education resources,
• offer multiple forms of entertainment,
• and engage patients with technology that is comfortable and adapts to your space.

Satellite, Cable, IPTV, oh my!

Where does one start to understand how to provide excellent TV options to entertain and inform patients who are in the hospital bed or enduring long hours of treatment? The choices may seem overwhelming if you are just beginning the process of choosing a TV system to delight your patients.

PDi has spent 40 years satisfying patients with TV technology solutions. We have outlined a few helpful tips we use when helping people understand broadcast signal choices, other input sources, and TV technology options for healthcare.

Healthcare providers know how important a safe, great experience is for patients and their overall satisfaction. Providers are often looking for new and different ways to delight patients because patient satisfaction impacts care and the hospital’s reputation (think HCAHP scores and patient surveys). 

One creative solution that benefits the healthcare experience is to roll in entertainment and telehealth solutions to patients. Growing in popularity, telehealth and entertainment healthcare carts are being used more often in many types of facilities to delight patients and provide a safe experience.

The right cart solutions can benefit a healthcare facility by being easily managed by staff, moving to patients while being space efficient, and ready to withstand rugged healthcare needs.

How many times have you created a handout and printed the final copies, just to get a call with more edits? That is incredibly common in many fields of work, especially in healthcare where things constantly change. In today’s fast paced, information filled world, some communication moves too fast for print. 

As we are offered more resources digitally and many people move towards decluttered, minimalist lifestyles, paper can often feel like a burden. Plus, since the COVID-19 pandemic, many people see paper in a much different way - more like a potential germ vehicle passing through multiple hands.

Luckily, utilizing smart technology, such as digital displays, in place of paper is beneficial in many scenarios and has become more commonplace, i.e. restaurant menus, building location signage or digital business cards. Similar digital displays allow healthcare facilities personnel to share important messages to patients, visitors and even staff.

It may feel like you should be able to easily choose just any TV you want for your healthcare facility. We do that for our homes, why not in a place that should be comforting like home? Healthcare-grade TVs are different, and for good reason. 

Have you ever considered the legal consequences of a patient receiving shock and injury from a consumer-grade television used in a healthcare environment? Have you considered the risk of an electrical fire from a TV at your facility? Do you realize patient TVs at healthcare facilities will naturally be powered on for longer periods of time as compared to typical consumer TV usage at home? In fact, Healthcare-grade TVs run typically 3x longer per day! 

Designed for patient safety and for the unique stresses of the healthcare environment, hospital TVs offer facility managers and providers the following benefits: 

• reduced risks with increased safety designs; 
• reduced labor with easy setup, remote management or cloning for ease of operation, and affordable upgrades; 
• universal pillow speaker capability and volume control features to reduce noise on the floor;
• and standardization across the network.

Fun isn’t typically the first thought that comes to mind when thinking about a hospital stay or an outpatient visit. Patients often find themselves bored or even stressed and anxious without ways to distract and entertain themselves during treatment. Luckily, healthcare-grade TVs offer an entertaining technology solution that is engaging and safe for your patients.

Did you ever think about the safety of a patient TV? With PDi, it doesn’t have to be a difficult task.