Patient education videos are a great way to inform any visitors in your waiting room about health-related topics. However, many hospitals, urgent care centers, and dentists, aren’t aware that these videos often make their patients feel uncomfortable. Are you currently playing patient education videos on your waiting room TV, or considering it? In this article we’ll explore why so many doctors, dentists, and medical specialists are so keen on showing patients educational or medical-related content; but most importantly, examine why that isn’t necessarily the best idea.

Patient Education Videos on the TV: Good or Bad?

Generally speaking, people aren’t really interested in watching medical-related content in waiting rooms. They’re not (usually) doctors, dentists, or a part of the medical industry themselves, therefore the chances of them having your level of appreciation for health-related videos is low. Regardless of how educational the videos are, patients tend to perceive them as boring, gross, or even depressing. Which is not how you want your visitors to feel.

“The TV in the waiting room was playing some gross health news infomercial.” -Yelp Review

As doctors and professionals concerned for the well-being of others, it’s only natural to want to educate patients wherever possible. However, you don’t want your good intentions accidentally making things worse. Additionally, you don’t want a video being the reason a patient had a bad experience, or left a bad review. Therefore, you should think carefully about what’s playing on your TV.

Waiting rooms across the country are playing videos that make patients feel uneasy. Many of these medical offices are paying, or have paid, a lot of money to put this kind of content on their TVs. Whether it’s cross-sections of clogged arteries, rotten teeth being pulled, or eyes getting scraped with scalpels (I wish that was only a joke, but it’s happened), it simply isn’t the sort of thing people in waiting rooms want to see. That goes double if those videos are on a 10-minute looping medical display. Medical offices – you can do better. Fortunately, there are ways of getting around the gross, or graphic content.

Waiting Room TV: The Best of Both Worlds

Should you do away with all of your patient education videos? Not at all. There’s a happy medium between showing videos with educational, or important health messages, and fun, interesting content that your visitors will enjoy watching. Finding a good balance between the two is the key to crafting the best waiting experience for your patients. Patient comfort comes first.

The Best Waiting Room TV: Where To Begin Looking

It doesn’t matter if you’re a hospital, urgent care, dentist, or specialist of some kind; finding the best waiting room TV software for a medical office is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, except the hay are countless custom TV providers telling you that they have the best technology, cheapest devices or easiest to use system. So how does one narrow the list down? Follow these 3 simple steps, and you’ll find the custom TV software that’s perfect for your waiting room:

1.) Avoid Medical-Only Content: For every reason that’s been detailed above. Medical videos are best shown when played alongside traditional TV content that people enjoy watching– like food/cooking, entertainment, home/garden, sports or fashion. Medical content can be good when it’s educational, and not gross. However, who doesn’t like watching something fun over something medical?

2.) Don’t Fall for “Free” TV Services: Nothing is free. That “free” TV for your medical office is likely paid-for by pharma ads that have no business in your waiting room. For more information about why “free tv” is a bad idea, check out this article: “Top 5 Reasons a Free TV Service is Bad for your Waiting Room.”

3.) Feature Your Own Content: Find waiting room TV software that allows you to upload, and mix-in your own personal videos. Medical videos aren’t bad, they’re just best in small doses. They are especially effective when the videos are personally-branded, and the people on the TV are your own staff. Most importantly, your messaging is better-received when it’s played in between content that puts visitors in a good mood. That’s really all it takes.