The rise of waiting room TV software is a growing trend in the medical industry. Whether it’s hospital TV, urgent care TV, or dental TV – anything; more and more healthcare providers are making the switch from cable to digital waiting room displays. Those who do opt for better waiting room television do so for a number of reasons; those reasons ranging from it being more cost effective, to simply wanting better quality content that visitors will enjoy.

When it comes to TV for waiting rooms there’s no shortage of options. But settling on the right digital signage means identifying what you’re looking for, what your waiting room is missing, and what your patients want to see. This article is meant to help inform any curious readers in the medical industry who are looking to do more with their waiting room TVs.

Waiting Room TV Software: What are you Looking for?

If you manage the TV at a hospital or urgent care, your first thought is likely to put medical-related content on your waiting rooms screens, right? Likewise, if you’re a dentist or optometrist – putting tooth and eye-related videos up on the TV is a no-brainer – also right?

Unfortunately this is a very common mistake that medical providers make every day.

Patient education is a fine goal. But too much medical-related content is boring at best, and unsettling at worst. Most of your patients are average, everyday folks who don’t necessarily have the same interest or appreciation for medical content that you do. Patients in a dentist office waiting room don’t really want to watch plaque get scraped off a rotting tooth; just like how people in a doctor’s waiting room or medical office waiting room don’t really want to watch videos of clogged arteries or blood vessels while they’re waiting.

However “educational” practice managers may feel these videos are, they just aren’t very appealing and will likely be ignored. This is the problem with medical office signage. It’s not to say that a hospital TV, urgent care TV, or dental TV, etc, can’t show medical content; instead it should be mixed with videos that their patients will enjoy watching. Waiting room television benefits from variety.

Waiting Room TV Software: What do Patients want to Watch?

Patients are people; people with their own likes, and dislikes. There’s no one thing that everyone will enjoy, so it’s important to cast a wide net and target as many interests as possible. Waiting room TV software is nice in that sense because the right digital signage solution will have variety. But variety isn’t enough; cable has variety, technically. However cable wasn’t designed for waiting rooms – it’s best for home use.

Waiting room videos need to be short and sweet. That’s what people want to see while they’re waiting. Visitors who are waiting as little as 5-10 minutes or as long as 1-2 hours aren’t there to watch TV – but if a TV is there, they will look at it if there’s something interesting playing. With short-form content and a long list of categories, they’re more likely to see something that puts them in a good mood or gets them to keep watching. Which not only improves patient experience, but makes visitors more receptive to your educational content.

What do patients want to watch? Fun and interesting content that’s engaging. If your medical office signage is borning, visitors are going to be staring at their phones the whole time and miss any important messaging you wanted them to see. If you struggle with this problem, it’s time to explore what your waiting room screens could be showing.

IRTV: The Thing that’s Missing from your Waiting Room

IRTV – Branded across the country as Rele.TV or It’s Relevant TV, is a feature-rich TV platform which has reinvented the world of waiting room television. Before It’s Relevant, healthcare providers had to settle for things like cable TV, looping medical displays, DVD playlists, or so-called “free-to-use” services like Outcome Health TV. If you’re currently using Outcome Health or ContextMedia; you should check out this article ASAP.

Waiting room TV software has come a long way. Many of the features that make digital signage for medical offices so outstanding and convenient are new; meaning that healthcare providers are largely, and understandably, unaware of how much control they could have over their TV. Control over what comes up on their waiting room screens. Amazing variety of content. The ability to upload personal videos and messaging; it’s even possible to integrate social media posts from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and have them show on the TV!

The future of waiting room TV digital signage isn’t cable, looping medical displays, DVDs, or playlists. It’s IRTV.

It’s Relevant TV is TV for Waiting Rooms

It’s Relevant TV delivers all of the features listed above, making it the best in waiting room digital signage. IRTV is hospital TV. It’s urgent care TV. It’s dental TV, vet TV, optometry TV – it’s waiting room TV for any type of medical office. It’s Relevant sets itself apart from other lobby TV display software by offering users 24/7 control over their network, convenient accessibility, creative customization, and full access to one of the world’s largest libraries of short-form licensed content; over half-a-million videos spread across 40+ categories.

Other TV packages for waiting rooms are not as feature-rich. There’s often no way to integrate social media, or their “quality content” is really just a looping playlist of outdated videos. When you mix your own waiting room videos with It’s Relevant’s fun, fresh, and engaging content; visitors are more likely to be receptive to your messaging.

It’s Relevant TV is a forward-thinking, cost effective, way to improve patient experience, promote your brand, and achieve your marketing goals. Costing less than cable on average, It’s Relevant is inexpensive marketing at its finest; giving you all the tools you need to generate success through your waiting room TV.