How Technology Helps Patients and Other Visitors Navigate Hospitals

If you're going to Overlook Medical Center in Summit, New Jersey, you can use an app that will direct you to the parking garage closest to the room you need to get to. Inside the hospital, the app provides GPS-precise directions -- walk 20 feet and go left, take the next elevator to the fourth floor -- on how to get to your appointment. If you prefer, you can instead use the app to download a 3-D map showing you the way.

"It's like Google Maps in your phone," says Gerard Durney, director of operations at the medical center. "Nobody wants to be in a hospital. Patients are frightened because they're often coming in for testing. Their friends and relatives are anxious. We're serious about making the experience of coming to Overlook as easy as possible." The app, called "Take Me There -- Overlook" is free and works on all cellular phones and electronic devices that can download apps. Visitors can also check out one of 10 electronic kiosks posted at strategic locations at the hospital to download directions onto their phone. People who don't have a cellphone can go onto the hospital's website, where they can get printable directions detailing how to get from the parking lot to their destination inside the hospital.

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Reducing Stress

Throughout the U.S., dozens of hospitals are using wayfinding apps, electronic kiosks and touch screens to help visitors navigate their facilities, which can be confusing and frustrating to visitors. "Hospitals want patients and their families to focus on what is important to restoring their health," says Nancy Foster, vice president of quality and patient safety at the American Hospital Association. "By improving the ability of patients to easily navigate facilities, hospitals are achieving that goal."

Helping patients and visitors find their way to their destinations in the best way possible can improve clinical care outcomes, Durney says. Hospital patients are typically experiencing high levels of anxiety over their medical condition, whether it's a heart ailment, cancer or acute kidney failure, he says. Durney provides this example: A patient who comes to the hospital for a cardiology exam is already worried about his condition and who will take care of his family if he's incapacitated or dies. His stress level spikes when he drives to the wrong garage and is running late for his appointment. He finally finds his way to the CAT scan department, but his mind is racing and he moves around during the procedure, so clinicians have to repeat it. "Imagine how much less stress he'd be under if he didn't have to worry about how to get to his appointment," Durney says.

Reducing that kind of stress is one way hospitals can improve the patient experience, says Dr. Paul Sternberg, chief medical officer and chief patient experience officer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which provides a wayfinding app to visitors. The app "has really been a home run," Sternberg says. It used to be common to see patients and other visitors wandering the facility, looking perplexed. "It became apparent to us we needed better ways for people to navigate our medical center," Sternberg says. "This is not something we needed focus groups to figure out."

Nor is a survey needed to determine that as technology continues to evolve, so do the expectations of consumers, including hospital visitors, says Mark Green, chief executive officer of Connexient, a company that provides indoor mapping and digital wayfinding technology in the health care market. Traditional hospital signage will probably never go away completely, Green says, but with the explosive growth in the use of smartphones, more and more people are becoming accustomed to finding information, including directions, on their electronic devices in seconds, he says. "People are so used to using these apps, there's a growing expectation that when you go into a large building like a hospital, this technology will be available."

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Positive Response

This technology is being well-received by patients and visitors, hospital officials say. Children's Health Specialty Center, a four-story outpatient facility in Plano, Texas, began using electronic kiosks in early 2016, says Scott Summerall, a spokesman for the facility. Kiosk screens produce a virtual display of the facility's hallways and elevators, with a blue guiding line, he says. Because there is a large Spanish-speaking population in North Texas, the kiosk is available in that language as well as English, Summerall says. "You just follow the blue line," Summerall says. "We've gotten great feedback. Our kiosk is very convenient for families who are there to focus on their child's health and well-being, not finding their way around."

Sheralyn Beck, 25, says the wayfinding app provided by Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock has helped her pay more attention to her young triplets without worrying about how to get to their appointments in the facility. Beck's children were born 14 weeks prematurely in another hospital and transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit at Arkansas Children's, where they spent four months. Though she's spent hundreds of hours at Arkansas Children's, Beck says the facility's wayfinding app has proven valuable in helping her navigate the facility's halls and find nearby clinics in other buildings. She says she relies on the app as she takes her children to as many as three doctor's appointments a day. "Getting from one appointment to another can be pretty confusing, especially if you're toting a double stroller and a single one," Beck says. "I've been in the hospital quite a bit, and I still get turned around."

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Even if you're not going to multiple appointments in one day, wayfinding apps can be useful, particularly for people who expect an extended hospital stay, says Eric Cole, chief administrative officer at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. The NIH's wayfinding app not only provides directions to and inside the hospital, it can also display nearby amenities, such as the closest post office, dry cleaners, restaurants and coffee shops, Cole says. The technology allows loved ones of patients who will be staying at the hospital for days or weeks to save time by running errands they might typically do in their neighborhoods, Cole explains.

Ruben Castaneda is a Health & Wellness reporter at U.S. News. He previously covered the crime beat in Washington, D.C. and state and federal courts in suburban Maryland, and he's the author of the book "S Street Rising: Crack, Murder and Redemption in D.C." You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him at LinkedIn or email him at rcastaneda@usnews.com.