Looking for an alternative to ViewMedica for your medical waiting room TV? We’ve summarized the top choices below.
Whether you’re a hospital, medical office, urgent care, doctor, dentist, or specialist, having a quality TV service provider in your waiting room is very important. Many people who had used the ViewMedica VMCast system in the past are looking for alternatives that provide a more content-rich experience. They are looking to achieve better patient engagement and visitor satisfaction with a different TV provider. Let’s take a look at the 3 types of TV services available to medical offices today:
#1 Custom Television Network
A custom television network is a relatively new technology. It’s a platform that delivers a variety of TV programming (that you can control), combined with the ability to message to your patients. Your messaging can take many forms; from your own videos and commercials to “digital signage” imagery, and programmable text on the screen. The Custom TV Network, pioneered by companies like It’s Relevant TV, keep television on the television, combine it will messaging, and provides ample control to the medical practice.
#2 Medical Information TV / Digital Signage
Medical Information TV provides a limited library of medical content, typically geared at medical specialties. At first glance these services, including ViewMedica, seem like a great match for a medical waiting room, but a closer examination of patient feedback shows that the content could use a boost. The goal of these services is to “educate your patients”, but if your patients aren’t engaged enough to watch the TV it’s really had to get that done.
The videos play on loop and can get very repetitive for patients sitting in front of them for any length of time. For this reason patients tend to “tune out” fairly quickly. They’d rather browse social media on their phones than watch a TV filled with only medical content and advertising for the practice.
Medical Information TV providers typically charge for access to videos and may charge extra per video you want to use. Some providers place pharmaceutical ads on your television that may become a source of added stress or anxiety for your patients.
#3 Cable Television
Cable TV is the service most often used in medical environments across the U.S. Cable lacks the ability to control anything other than choosing the channel you are on in any given moment. Competitive advertisements, inappropriate content and more can come across a cable TV broadcast. And short of advertising on cable, you can’t put your own messaging on the TV.
Best ViewMedica Alternative
While ViewMedica’s library of medical videos on demand is very much appreciated by doctors and specialists, you can do better than ViewMedica’s VM Cast service in your waiting room. Playing a small selection of medical videos that may not be relevant to your patients, over and over as they wait is a surefire way to lower patient satisfaction. Instead we recommend a custom television solution like It’s Relevant TV. Keeping the content relevant is crucially important for better visitor experience and online reviews.
Utilizing ViewMedica in the exam room, on a tablet for instance, is a great way to have videos on demand to show your patients. But it’s just not as good of a fit for the waiting room.
It’s much wiser to use a service that focuses solely on waiting room TV to provide the best patient experience, instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Relevance is key to keep engagement high. Check out It’s Relevant TV and Rele.tv for truly relevant solutions for medical waiting room environments.
