How Digital Signage Could be Helpful for Pharmacies during COVID-19

Digital signage, particularly touchscreen technology, has infiltrated a wide range of sectors within the medical field including doctors’ offices, hospitals, dental clinics, test labs, and more. Pharmacies can also stand to benefit from the dynamic and convenient information sharing technology that digital signage has to offer. Whether customers are waiting in line for prescriptions, making inquiries about their health and medications, or interested in learning about the latest vaccine updates, people simply don’t want to wait in long lines at the pharmacy anymore. Necessary social and physical distancing protocols as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have made prolonged public outings understandably unnerving for a lot of individuals.

Strategically placed and used digital signage can help reduce long wait times and improve your customer service methods substantially among other factors.

Why Pharmacies Should Install Digital Signage

Various types of digital signage interfaces and applications can help streamline pharmaceutical processes to ensure improved convenience, accuracy, wait times, and customer service. Here are a few ways in which pharmacies can benefit from using digital signage technology during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prevent Human or Machine Errors

As a pharmacist, you understandably have the best interest of your customers at heart. It’s your job to provide them with the information they need about their medications and their health. Unfortunately, it’s easy for pharmacists to become bombarded or overwhelmed with an onslaught of patients all at once and this can lead to some misunderstandings or human errors.

Setting up digital touchscreen devices at the front counter and asking patients to fill out their personal information that way can help reduce the risk of misunderstandings and allows customers an opportunity to review their information before submitting it into the system.

Pharmacists can also review the information and verify anything that’s unclear or may have been missed by the customer.

Minimize Customer Wait Times

Even before the pandemic started, people have always hated waiting for things. Whether it’s long line ups to pick up a prescription or to get news about their health, customers are more nervous than ever before to go out in public and wait in long lines. Despite the fact that it’s now mandatory to wear masks or face coverings in public places and guidelines are asking people to stand six feet apart, the fact is that this is not easily enforceable at all times. Generally, people want to get in and out of the pharmacy as quickly as they can to avoid transmitting the COVID-19 virus.

Allowing customers to enter their own information into a computer system without having to wait in line to provide their information can help speed up the whole process and greatly reduce wait times.

Share Information More Easily

Installing digital signage and touchscreen technology throughout your pharmacy is mutually beneficial to you and your customers. As a pharmacist, one of your main responsibilities is to make health and medical information as widely available to your patrons as possible. This is especially true in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. People need round-the-clock updates on what’s going on.

Digital screens throughout your pharmacy can help keep people informed about current events, provide information about your pharmacy, and provide medical updates in a way that’s convenient and easy to understand for your customers. In the event that people do need to wait in line for service or prescription pickup, at least they’ll have something to help them pass the time a little faster.

Excellent Wayfinding Solutions

While many pharmacies are standalone units in well-known plazas, others are attached to medical buildings, doctors’ offices, or hospitals. Medical buildings can sometimes be confusing and difficult for some customers to navigate, but dynamic digital signage can provide a helpful wayfinding solution. Touchscreen digital signage can be programmed so that customers can either search for or click on the name of your pharmacy to navigate how to get there from wherever they are in the building. This is just like the modern digital maps that can be found in shopping centers.

In fact, it’s also very beneficial for pharmacies that are located inside shopping centers as well.

Improve Overall Customer Experience

Ultimately, your goal as a pharmacist and healthcare worker is to serve the best interests of everyone who sets foot in your pharmacy. Pharmacists are essential workers and should have all of the equipment necessary to do their jobs safely and accurately.

Digital signage technology allows customers to easily provide you with their information on an online platform. It also helps you quickly pull up customer files as well as information about their medications (e.g. what they’re for, appropriate dosages, and possible side effects) and other health-related questions they may have.

The ability to access this information on the fly is crucial because it can help you improve your customer service skills, streamline medication processes, and guarantee that all customer information is accurate and completely up to date.

Creates More Branding Opportunities

Whether you’re a small privately owned pharmacy or part of a large corporation, digital signage provides endless branding and marketing opportunities to help you reach out to more people. Digital signage can be used to advertise current or upcoming promotions and help customers learn more about your business. You can even expand to exterior digital advertising such as billboards to capture more people’s attention. When screens are in idle mode, you can display your brand logo or emblem to help people remember what it looks like.

Connect with Customers on Social Media

Social media is a great marketing tool that you can use to connect with your customers online. Show customers how they can follow your pharmacy for updates by displaying your Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook handles.

Interested in installing state-of-the-art digital touchscreen displays in your pharmacy?

Nauticomp Inc. provides high-quality custom digital displays to a variety of industries and businesses including pharmacies and medical facilities. Since 1997, we’ve specialized in providing LED and LCD displays that are rugged, versatile, and capable of integrating numerous application types. Contact us today to learn more about our products or to place your order.