Hospitals and healthcare centers often cover thousands of square feet with many buildings, hallways, and departments. It can be hard for patients, visitors, and staff to find their way. Many hospitals say that hard navigation causes late appointments, more stress, and sometimes missed visits. Medical administrators know that better navigation can make patients happier, reduce delays, and help hospitals run more smoothly.
Pamela Landis, Vice President of Information and Analytics Services at Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina, said, “Everybody in healthcare is still trying to figure out wayfinding.” Her words show that hospitals are still working on better ways to help people find their way.
One useful tool for digital navigation is the use of mobile apps with beacon technology. Beacon systems have small wireless transmitters inside hospital buildings. These talk to mobile devices using Bluetooth. They help track location and guide people like GPS does.
For example, Atrium Health uses the “Atrium Health Directions” app in its large 2.8 million-square-foot campus. This campus includes Carolinas Medical Center and Levine Children’s Hospital. The app uses about 3,000 wireless beacons spread across the area. These beacons send signals to the user’s phone and help guide them with a blue dot on detailed digital maps. This helps patients and visitors find their way through many buildings and floors.
Atrium Health started with digital maps covering 800,000 square feet and plans to add another 735,000 square feet. They want to make the app cover more areas. The app was made to be simple and easy to use. Landis said, “What I like about the app experience is that it is very simple and easy to use for the patient or visitor.” This makes patients feel less nervous and more confident when using it.
Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City made its own wayfinding app too. It works not only on smartphones but also on touchscreen kiosks and interactive displays placed around the hospital. They use Aruba Meridian technology to create a network that supports geofencing and real-time location tracking. This helps users get more accurate directions and special information depending on where they are inside the hospital.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston took a different plan. They spent a year and a half studying technology and building limits before starting their navigation tool. Their tool uses a mobile-friendly website to give directions from home and on campus. They use location services such as Wi-Fi triangulation, geomagnetic positioning, and beacon technology. This allows real-time directions on any device that connects to the internet. Josie Elias, their program manager, said that after adding app links in appointment texts, app use went up over 1,000 percent.
From an administrator’s view, good digital navigation tools help patient flow, lower questions at front desks about directions, and reduce late or missed patients. IT managers like that these systems can work with existing hospital technology. Platforms like Aruba Meridian and other beacon systems make integration easier.
Patients and families also help test these apps at places like Atrium Health and Saint Luke’s. This makes sure the apps fit the needs of those who use them. This way, the tools work well for people walking through big, multi-building hospitals.
Administrators know that navigation tools must not cost too much. Pamela Landis said that Atrium Health’s app is “not overly expensive but still incredibly valuable.” Budgets can be tight. Solutions should prove their worth by making patients happier and workflows smoother.
Navigation tools are also changing to help patients with visual impairments. This group often finds hospitals harder to get around. A study published in Heliyon looked at technologies like Ultrasonic sensors, LiDAR, and smartphone sensor fusion that help visually impaired people move safely in new places.
These tools detect obstacles in real time and give feedback through sounds or vibrations. Using artificial intelligence, these systems understand surroundings better. They give instructions that help visually impaired patients feel more independent and sure of themselves.
While these tools are often used outside hospitals, they show promise inside, especially in large universities and medical centers. Adding such technology to digital navigation helps include more people and meet the needs of all patients.
Besides helping physical navigation, AI is playing a bigger role in managing healthcare office tasks. Companies like Simbo AI use AI for phone automation and answering services to reduce work on staff.
AI phone systems can handle scheduling, reminders, and answering patient questions without needing a person all the time. They can send text reminders with links to navigation apps, like Brigham and Women’s Hospital has done.
AI does more than phone work. It can study how patients move and when appointments happen. This helps plan staffing at registration desks and resource use for wayfinding help. AI chatbots inside patient portals can also give directions and reduce the work at the front desk.
For IT managers, putting in AI navigation and communication needs joining several systems — patient records, communication tools, digital maps, and beacon hardware — into one system. The result lowers wait times, eases workflows, and improves the patient care experience.
Healthcare administrators and medical practice owners in the U.S. should plan carefully when adopting mobile wayfinding and beacon systems:
Hospitals like Atrium Health, Saint Luke’s, and Brigham and Women’s show good examples of how to use these technologies on a large scale.
Healthcare navigation has moved from simple signs to smart, location-aware digital apps. These help patients get to their appointments faster, with less stress, and a better experience. These tools are also starting to connect with AI systems that automate office work. For U.S. healthcare administrators and IT managers, knowing about these technologies and learning from real hospitals is important to improve healthcare delivery today.
Digital wayfinding in healthcare refers to technology solutions, such as mobile apps and beacon systems, that assist patients and visitors in navigating hospital campuses, providing real-time directions and information.
Atrium Health’s wayfinding app uses Bluetooth technology to provide real-time navigation by ‘breadcrumbing’ users through the campus, displaying their location like a Google map.
Key features include easy navigation through a complex hospital campus, location tracking, and integration with other valuable hospital services.
Atrium Health deployed approximately 3,000 wireless beacons across its Carolinas Medical Center campus to facilitate navigation.
Hospitals often struggle with complex layouts, multiple buildings, and the stress experienced by patients and visitors, making navigation difficult.
Mobile wayfinding solutions streamline navigation, reduce patient stress, and potentially increase satisfaction by providing easy access to locations and services.
Saint Luke’s wayfinding app integrates with a robust network setup studied in collaboration with Aruba, combining geolocation, mobile interfaces, and existing hospital infrastructure.
User feedback from patients and families informs app improvements and expansions, ensuring the solution meets real-world navigation needs effectively.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital built a mobile app using Wi-Fi, geomagnetic positioning, and beacons, offering continuous guidance and customizable directions.
Embedding app links in appointment text reminders resulted in over 1,000 percent increase in app usage, leading to improved patient navigation experiences.
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