Branding in the Healthcare Industry: 4 Common Facility Design and Maintenance Mistakes to Avoid
Enhance Patient Experience with These Tips
Branding in the healthcare industry contributes to a positive patient experience. It’s truly about creating a meaningful connection between your organization and the people you serve. This can be achieved through digital means, such as your website, ads, or other messaging. However, the physical aspect of branding shouldn’t be overlooked.
When you’re designing and maintaining your facility, you should take the patient experience into consideration. This includes analyzing aspects like lighting, signage, and other items that impact patient sentiment. Below, you’ll find four common facility design and maintenance mistakes to avoid at your healthcare organization.
1. Lacking Human Emotion
Overly clinical brand aesthetics can be off-putting for your target audience. A lack of comforting decor can make patients think your organization focuses on processes, not people.
An easy way to combat this clinical feeling is by installing experiential graphics. You can custom design these graphics to express culture, brand imagery, and the dynamics of your local community. You could showcase your involvement in the local community through a custom timeline in a reception area, for example. There are countless ways you could implement these graphics to create a more inviting atmosphere for your patients.
2. There’s an Absence of Wayfinding Signage
Healthcare facilities can be massive complexes, creating confusing mazes for patients and visitors. When your patients are sick or visitors are trying to locate their loved ones, the last thing they want to do is navigate a confusing labyrinth. That’s where wayfinding signage comes in.
Wayfinding signage identifies key areas of your facility and helps patients and visitors navigate your buildings. Directional, informational, identity, and regulatory signs are crucial to helping your patients and visitors feel at ease.
3. You Haven’t Considered Lighting Options
The right lighting can improve the patient experience in more ways than one. Research suggests certain lighting can help reduce depression, ease pain, and improve sleep and circadian rhythms, which can speed up the healing process for long-term patients. Additionally, lighting can affect the experience for patients who come in for a quick check-up. If your lighting is too bright, it can increase stress levels and reduce their satisfaction with your facility’s services.
The right lighting can also improve your employees’ work performance, which could improve the patient experience. The correct lighting can improve mood, energy, and alertness of your workforce. A happy workforce is more likely to go the extra mile to help your patients. In short, analyzing your facility’s lighting could improve patient recovery and satisfaction.
4. You Don’t Have a Maintenance System in Place
Having a facility maintenance schedule is imperative to keeping your location looking its best. Patients and visitors want their chosen healthcare location to be pristine. Anything less, and they could start to question the level of care they’ll receive from your organization.
Having a preventative maintenance program in place is best. In this case, you’ll work with a trusted partner to create a program that proactively addresses common and industry-specific maintenance issues, ensuring your brand provides a reliable and meaningful experience for your customers at all times. With a facility and sign preventative maintenance program, your brand assets stay in peak condition and ensure they’ll operate well for years to come. As a result of maintaining them, your brand continues to impact everyone who engages with it.
Physical Branding in the Healthcare Industry: Trust the Experts
Worried your branding in the healthcare industry isn’t up to par with your competitors? Stratus can help you analyze your physical location branding and make upgrades that will improve patient and visitor experience.
Stratus is the leading brand implementation and facility services company. We complete thousands of nationwide projects every year, ranging from lighting improvements to signage and graphic creation and installation. We also offer maintenance services, EV charging station installation, facility refreshes and remodels, and more. With multiple locations throughout the U.S., over 150 years of experience, and more than 1100 employees across 29 states, we’re one of the leading partners for some of the largest and most recognized brands.
Let’s Build Something Great Together
Ready to upgrade your physical branding in the healthcare industry? Reach out to our helpful team today.