Everyone dreads it. Sitting around in a waiting room for several hours at your local physical therapist or doctor’s office or hospital room is frustrating and it tests your patience, especially if you’re not feeling well.
If you’re looking to improve the patient experience, it’s a great idea to start with a little revamping of your waiting room. Here’s how you can improve waiting rooms for patients so that they can stay occupied.
Tips to Improve Hospital Waiting Rooms
- Put out a Coffee/Tea Maker
It may seem simple, but having small comforts of home like the ability to make yourself a warm up of tea or coffee can make a huge difference to your patients. Just imagine all the sore throats that come through your space. Additionally, studies show that when waiting at a doctor’s office, it’s more about the perception of how that time is spent as opposed to the actual length of time spent waiting.
- Implement a Registration Kiosk
Touch-based patient registration tablets offer self-service capabilities to hospitals, physician clinics, surgery centers, and standalone emergency clinics. It affords patients the convenience of pre-registering from any outside web portal, then checking in by using a tablet or iPad when they arrive for their appointments. It’s been said to reduce patient wait times by as much as 75%, substantially cut down on paperwork and help handle high patient volume without increasing staff.
- Adjustable Seating
When it comes to seating, it’s important to remember that what works for one person may not be comfortable for everyone. For example, older people or pregnant women may struggle with deep cushions that are difficult to get up from. Purchasing seating that is adjustable will help you cater to your patient’s individual needs.
- Wi-Fi and Educational Health Material
Many patients have to take time out of their busy workdays to make their scheduled doctors’ appointments. Instead of a rack filled with out of date magazines, why not give patients the opportunity to be productive by completing emails and other work related to-dos on your office’s wifi network? You can also direct them towards patient educational health materials on your website or social media networks. Patients will appreciate you taking an extra interest in their health and being considerate of their work obligations.
- Provide Free Charging Stations
Of course, if patients are using lots of data, even when connected to wi-fi their cell phone batteries can get drained quickly. To help patients avoid the added stress of seeing their phones steadily wear down, you can help by providing free charging stations around the waiting area. https://veloxity.us
Ultimately, waiting is merely a part of life. However, by adding a few simple extras to your waiting room you can help ease what is otherwise an often unpleasant experience.
If you’re considering buying a phone charging station, there are many things to first consider so here’s a how-to guide to help you out.
Whether you own a business or are planning an event, a cell phone charging kiosk is a worthwhile investment that provides a great benefit for customers.
- Audience
Just like with sales, know your audience and numbers. Typically, one device charging unit can keep about 400 people fully charged up and happy.
- Storage
A place to store a freestanding or portable charging unit should be taken into consideration before making a purchase. Got space? Stand-alone charging kiosks like the Veloxity LockerPower are typically stored in wooden shipping crates. The crates can be reused 4-5 times and should be kept inside. Portable units like Veloxity’s Power Pax will come in a cardboard box and should also be kept indoors.
- Price
How much something will cost is very often a concern. Do you go with the lowest price and possibly sacrifice quality? Or do you pay top dollar for a premium product with tons of features? The answer is likely somewhere in the middle, and you’ll chose a product that gives you the best bang for your buck. Purchasing or renting multiple units at a time often warrants discounts from charging station vendors so feel free to ask, it can’t hurt.
- Quality
Price and quality go hand-in-hand. It’s important that the product you purchase is up to your standards and provides excellent value. How exactly can you tell the difference in quality from one kiosk to another? That depends on the amount of features like how many cords are available or if there are branding opportunities. Warranties, which can be limited or comprehensive (keep reading for more). And finally certifications that give you a baseline for how reliable or environmentally friendly the charging kiosk is. One example of a certification program is Apple’s MFi system. Be sure to ask about the operating system and if the charging cables are MFi certified.
- Support
Cell phone charging kiosks are an investment for your business, so what good are they doing for customers if they don’t work? As an owner or renter you’ll want to make sure the station is always running. You also don’t want to waste time trying to fix issues on your own, so having access to a support line is necessary. Some vendors will charge a monthly support fee while others will provide it for free.
- Warranty
Protecting your investment is very important and sometimes overlooked. Besides support, you’ll want to learn about the warranties as a form of insurance and a way to save you both time and money if there happen to be any issues. Read the fine print and ask questions.
- Reputation
Before you buy something online or visit a restaurant, you probably read a few reviews and check background info on the company, so it shouldn’t be any different for a charging station. You don’t have to be a detective to find background info on the company you’re buying from. Just do a simple google search to see which companies they’ve sold to, or if they’ve sponsored any events. Ask for references.
- Safety
As a business owner you always need to have customers’ needs in mind. Usually chief among those needs is safety and privacy. You can’t provide a charging kiosk if it’s dangerous, or could compromise the security of their phone. For more information about the safety of charging kiosks, check out a recent blog post from Veloxity.
Should cell phones be allowed in schools?
Cell phones have established themselves as an absolutely indispensable item for students in schools these days. Parents and staff certainly know that cell phones can have amazing benefits for children today. Nonetheless, allowing kids to have cell phones in schools has remained a controversial topic the past decade.
Here’s our take on why cell phone should in fact be allowed at schools:
Cell phones ensure a child’s safety
Believe it or not, cell phones keep children safe. How?
- In case of any emergency children can instantly get in touch with you and seek help.
- Students can call 911 or other hotlines in case of an emergency.
- With unforeseen violence, a student can promptly inform school authorities.
Easy and prompt communication
Cell phones have literally empowered parents to keep a watch on their children. One quick call or text message and you get to know the immediate whereabouts of children. Of course, there’s always the call home for a forgotten lunch, homework project, or change of after school plans.
Information and knowledge at your finger-tips
Teachers often complain about students playing and fidgeting with smartphone apps while in class. Additionally, some parents might label phone apps as addictive and “bad”. On the contrary, there are several apps that could be very beneficial for educational purposes.
Over 70% of schools have reversed cell phone bans and it doesn’t come as a surprise given that students use cell phones:
- To discuss homework with friends.
- For internet research.
- As a calculator and stopwatch for science experiments.
- To keep the track of time elapsed during exams.
- As a spell check or dictionary.
- Use organization apps
Alternative thought to conventional methods
Millennials usually get bored with the conventional methods of teaching and tend to be less attentive in class. As a result their academics suffer. Students with mobile phones find learning more exciting with great mobile apps.
- Students learn faster through useful mobile apps.
- Students tend to develop a level of respect for the teachers and school authorities, with the encouragement and trust being exhibited by the school in motivating students to bring their own mobile devices.
- However, students found misusing the devices shall be deprived from using them and the mobile devices would be confiscated by school authorities.
A stepping stone towards professional Life
Right from ordering designer clothes, vegetables, groceries, gadgets, movie tickets to checking business mails, searching and applying for jobs, cell phones have literally defined a new dimension in how the various facets of professional world operates and functions.
So how do you prepare students for future challenges without introducing them to the cell phone use in school? It is crucial and important that school students get acquainted with the world of opportunities right at their finger-tips. This is the predominant reason why more and more schools across the geography are proactively working towards motivating students to carry mobile phones to school premises.
A practical problem: How to keep cell phones charged up?
Battery life is short lived. A charging solution for 1:1 technology schools, universities, colleges, and other campuses is a LockerPower charging kiosk. The LockerPower kiosk features individual lockers that can charge virtually all phones and tablets. Students and staff can stay fully charged and always connected.