Wayfinding signs in the medical industry can differentiate your company from others and make a brand statement. These signs go beyond the typical directional markers. An effective wayfinding system boosts loyalty, trust, and satisfaction with your parties. There has been a recent push to use these markers for branding. If you are looking for ways to improve your medical wayfinding signs, here are a few suggestions.
Reflect Your Branding
There are many healthcare options, from retail clinics to urgent care centers. With a strong brand identity, you can communicate your organization’s mission and values with the help of wayfinding signage. For example, some medical practices might use child-friendly signage, especially if the medical center is geared towards pediatric services. Branding is a great asset for medical providers. With consistent elements, that branding can help stay at the forefront of your patients’ minds.
Enhance the Patient’s Experience
Wayfinding signage does more than direct patients from one spot to another. You want to create a unified experience for them. When the wayfinding signs are clear to read, you improve that journey for your patients. Everyone understands that going to the doctor or hospital can be stressful. When you have clear and concise signs, you ensure that your patients will not be frustrated finding their way to your door.
Don’t think that you need to use plain and drab signage. You can design wayfinding signs that are inviting, colorful, and fun. These signs can be a positive distraction from a medical appointment. When you incorporate a fun but professional design into your waymarking sign, you improve the medical environment for everyone, including your staff.
Keep Everyone Engaged
If you want to create effective wayfinding signage, you must keep everyone engaged. The patient experience should be as compassionate and seamless as possible. When you use a wayfinding sign, it will empower your employees. These signs arm your staff with in-depth knowledge of the location to help families and patients get to an appointment. In the end, these signs put the focus back on the patients’ medical care.
If you want to create helpful wayfinding signage, remember to use colorful visuals and building guides to connect all facilities. All of your exterior signage should be visible from the street and near the major entrances. While you can use standard wall signage, wayfinding can extend to the digital world. Use those wayfinding markers to communicate with patients through a visual message board. These wayfinding navigation methods will help keep your employees and patients comfortable in your facility.
Design With Consistency and Flexibility In Mind
You want those wayfinding signs to be logical and flexible, but they should give you room to grow. Don’t rely on fonts and colors that are trendy. In a few years, those design elements could fall out of favor. Make sure to choose timeless elements.
However, you want wayfinding signs that are still consistent with your medical building’s branding. Choose those colors and fonts that maintain the same feel as the rest of the branding and match the design of the medical facility. With those tips in mind, you can design wayfinding signage that will remain consistent for many years to come.
Get Some Feedback
Wayfinding signage in the healthcare industry should be intuitive, but that can mean different things to certain people. Before you redesign those wayfinding signs, reach out to the staff, patients, and families during the selection process. Getting some feedback can help you with a few factors, such as whether there is a preference for the word “level” or “floor.”
Feedback is an excellent way to prevent chaos when installing those new wayfinding signs. Medical care facilities deal with life and death situations. The last thing you want to do is confuse staff members or patients when there is an emergency. Patient and employee focus groups allow you to draw inspiration from their ideas and help validate your decisions. With that, you can use wayfinding signage that keeps everyone safe.
Think About Cultural Sensitivity
When creating wayfinding signage, you want to create a design that everyone can understand. If you have a medical facility in an area that caters to a diverse population, it needs to be legible to all groups. In many cases, you can create wayfinding signs in several languages. While that can help a few patients, you cannot place every language on the sign. You might want to consider using graphics or pictures to convey your directions. These graphics can be helpful to visitors, especially in times of an emergency. The graphics can get everyone to a safe spot or help them find the correct location.
Colors can even be a big concern, especially for those with color blindness. Certain colors must meet the guidelines set by the ADA. With all of these concerns addressed, you can find the proper wayfinding signage to meet the needs of your community.
Make Maintenance a Priority
You want to create signs that are easily maintained by your staff. When locations or names change, you need to have a system to make those updates on demand. For that reason, you will want to work with an affordable sign company. These professionals can help you create signs in a timely manner for your medical facility. With that, you never have to worry about using hand-drawn signs when a doctor moves out of the building or a particular office changes its location. These signs can be ready to apply in a few days.
Wayfinding signage helps your patients find their way throughout your medical building. With clear and concise signage, you can cut down on confusion and help ease the stress of your staff and patients.
We Can Help With Medical Wayfinding Signage
At Tupp Signs, we can assist with all these medical wayfinding signs. We understand that you want clear messaging with your signage. Our company will work with you to create a better patient experience and adhere to your branding standards. You can schedule a consultation by calling 302-322-1600.