It’s no secret that the patient television is the unofficial lifeline in the healthcare space. Sure, patients are often connected to truly life-saving medical devices, whether it’s an IV of fluids, a dialysis machine or a heart rate or oxygen monitor. These are critically important to their health and the care providers can give patients. But when those providers leave the room, patients can’t interact with these machines and boredom can set in quickly.

As part of our 40th Anniversary celebration, we’re launching a special series of blogs throughout 2020. Each month you’ll see insights from a different member of the PDi team. Our goal is to bring you more fully into the PDi family. Our first in this series comes to you from Glen Rocco, PDi Director of Business Development.

Healthcare experiences can feel overwhelming. Most patients seek comfort. This comfort can come from reassuring actions from the clinical staff, or maybe an extra blanket brought in by a visiting loved one to the hospital or clinic patient.

It can be so easy to think of healthcare as separate from consumer trends. After all, healthcare technology has its own set of regulations that don’t apply to consumer technology. Healthcare televisions are compatible with pillow speaker controls, UL-listed and able to operate for many more hours a day than consumer sets. Despite this, healthcare television trends follow consumer trends. Let’s take a look at three major consumer technology trends healthcare providers should keep on their radar.

The best healthcare experience comes from putting people first.

Nowadays most people expect to have access to technology at any time. With the prevalence of cell phones, tablets and other devices, we’re constantly connected to some kind of digital distraction.

Healthcare improvers are paving the way to the future in the healthcare industry. They are adopters of technology, pioneers of new processes and champions for problem solving. Healthcare improvers help make patients’ lives and experiences better.

Having a hospital television in a patient room is often seen as something that creates a more home-like feel in a healthcare setting, but it’s actually much more important than that. Hospital TVs and technology help distract patients from pain, educate patients, and help them connect to the world outside their room.

PDi arms have served facilities and their patients for nearly 40 years. It’s one of the reasons PDi is known as an industry leader in the healthcare space for personal patient televisions and infotainment. We build our arms to last, ensuring that PDi technology is a good investment for your healthcare facility.

When we engineer and manufacture new arm-mounted patient televisions like medTV16, we make sure our new devices are backwards compatible with many existing arms and mounts.

We are proud to create complete solutions that protect our customers’ existing investments.

Patient-centered care brings patient engagement and personal involvement in care to a new level. When facilities try to implement patient-centered care, there is often a disconnect between what facilities think will make them more patient-centric and what patients really need. There’s a difference between making changes to become modern (like offering online scheduling) and implementing patient-centered initiatives, like involving patients more fully in their care.

What is Patient-Centered Care?

When facilities move toward more patient-centered care, it’s very similar to increasing their focus on patient engagement. Healthcare providers and patients should be on the same page in terms of the patient’s health goals, intentions and care plan. Patient-centered care should have a positive impact on health outcomes and can help patients be more knowledgeable about their conditions.