As part of a multi-million euro upgrade, AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende AV, one of Belgium’s largest and leading hospitals, installed more than 500 pro-displays to help improve the comfort and care of its patients, whilst providing extensive, more personalised content control and management opportunities.
As the global population continues to rise (up from 7 billion to 7.8 billion in the past decade), coupled with an ageing population (73.5 years in 2018 to 74.4 in 2022), plus unprecedented and unexpected health threats – such as the coronavirus – the demand for hospital care is unforgiving. Nicknamed the ‘Capital of Europe’, Belgium is home to 209 hospitals and one of the world’s most diverse populations (up by a million since 2005), with more than 180 nationalities and 108 spoken languages in the country.
With tens of thousands of daily hospital visitors and admissions, 64,000 beds and an average stay of approximately 6.4 days, the need for round the clock communication and managing the comfort and wellbeing of patients is of vital importance. This is certainly the case for AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende AV, one of Belgium’s largest and leading hospitals, with over 1,182 beds and 2,380 full-time staff.
Three campuses
Spread over three campuses; Sint-Jan and Sint-Franciscus Xaverius in Bruges, and the Henri Serruys, located along the North Sea coastline in nearby Ostend, the hospital has a history spanning eight centuries, and offers everything from basic care to more highly specialized treatment, seeing more than 300,000 people each year.
“The developments and improvements in patient care never stand still. Every patient can come to us, for basic services as well as highly specialized care applications. We want to remain a reference in the region through our personal approach, professional development and mutual cooperation”, an AZ Sint-Jan spokesperson commented.
Having first opened its doors back in 1150, the Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende AV hospital – a true historic landmark – has, as you’d expect, seen considerable expansions, renovations and changes in infrastructure over time. Renowned both nationally and internationally for its quality assurance and patient satisfaction, the hospital has recently undergone a substantial upgrade, with internal and external renovations to its facilities and equipment.
With changes in technological advancements, the entire hospital required a major update to its cabling and connectivity as part of its ever-evolving ambitions to maintain the highest standards in modern comfort, including entertainments services and communications to its diverse range of patients. As part of the upgrade, old analogue systems and CRT televisions desperately needed replacing, making way for digital interactivity and infinite possibilities.
€3.4 million of its budget was reserved for ‘other equipment’, which included the rollout of LCD TVs inside 500 patient rooms.
The solution
To meet the hospital’s needs, the team at AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende AV partnered with Tele-Signal Electronics, a leading Belgium-based AV integration firm, specialising in the installation of Digital Signage, Pro TVs and IPTV Beside Multimedia inside hospitals, rest homes and hotels, among others.
Founded in 1978, the family-run business has a proud portfolio and reputation in providing digital signage and IPTV solutions to major organisations and institutions around the county. With a proven track record working together, Tele-Signal teamed up with the Philips Professional Display Solutions to develop a future-proof infotainment system throughout all three campuses of the hospital.
In total, 500 securely connected 32” Philips MediaSuite and 19” Philips Heartline Professional TVs were selected and implemented in patient waiting rooms and treatment rooms. Jochen Verbrugghe, owner of NV Tele-Signal Electronics, commented: “Implementing our all-in-one OSCART IPTV platform onto Philips displays, patients are able to feel more at ease through informative video clips tailored to their specific needs. These clips can be displayed in many languages, allowing all patients to enjoy the IPTV experience, regardless of their nationality: “We like working with Philips Professional Display Solutions because their service and commitment to their customers is very strong.”
Leading cloud-based management and control solutions provider, Tele-Signal Electronics’ OSCART IPTV technologies was selected to control and manage all content provided on each display – as well as monitors located in waiting rooms and reception areas – whether displaying specific messages (in a specific language) on a single or collective basis.
Running on Android, Philips PDS’ Google-certified MediaSuite Pro TVs were selected, in part, due to the their extensive range of hospitality features – helping to keep patients entertained, with access to wide range of channels, popular apps, as well as being able to view content directly from a mobile device via Chromecast.
Environment
Philips PDS’ HeartLine displays are bedside TVs designed specifically for the healthcare industry, providing improved patient comfort, while adhering to strict and sensitively hospital regulations around health, hygiene and, importantly, security.
The TVs, which can be installed in close proximity to patients, are built using JIS Z2801 compliant antimicrobial additive in their housing to create a protective shield that impedes the growth of the most common microorganisms, such as Staphylococcus aureus (Gastroenteritis), Escherichia coli (E Coli) and Klebsiella (Pneumonia).
The HeartLine is also equipped with a toughened hydrophobic flat safety glass front, repelling fingerprints and making it easy to clean. It has no raised buttons, which means no crevices for germs to get into. In addition, galvanic isolation ensures the safest possible connection between the patient’s headphones, with no current able to pass from the headphone circuit into the surrounding electrical environment, ensuring the protection of both patient and sensitive medical instruments.
Tom Roef, Sales Manager Professional TV at Philips PDS added: “We’re delight to have supported Tele-Signal Electronics in this important installation at the AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende AV. Hospitals can be a scary place for patients and, here at Philips Professional Display Solutions, our strategy is always – whether for a hotel or a hospital ward – to help create a home from home entertainment experience. Mental health can be as important as physical health. With MediaSuite and our range of dedicated HeartLine bedside TVs, we’re able to tick all the right boxes to ensure the hospital is able to control and manage its communications in a simple and efficient way in almost any language, while at the same time offering patients a more comfortable and personalised experience.”
Key benefits
Key benefits of the new system include:
Interactive information: Welcome visitors, inform them and express the right image in a way they can understand, easily choosing, creating and displaying content on selected screens at any time.
Easy content updates: Content can be easily updated by the hospital staff based on single patient rooms and multi-patient wards to ensure that the right information or entertainment is provided at all times.
Remote upgrades: Software updates can be remotely deployed to ensure the latest features and security patches are installed. Updates are instant and can be directed to the entire set of screens or selected sectors.
Energy efficient: All the displays selected – including MediaSuite and HeartLine – require very low power consumption, which helps the hospital keep running costs down.
Future-proof technology: New IPTV and Digital Signage features can be quickly deployed without additional hardware or cabling, ensuring quick and cost-effective results.
Project fast facts
Client
AZ Sint-Jan Brugge – Oostende AV
Location
Bruges, Belgium
Project
OSCART IPTV set up and installation for over 500 hospital rooms + monitors waiting room + reception
Partners
Tele-Signal Electronics
Products
Philips 32-inch MediaSuite displays and Philips 19-inch HeartLine displays (500 units) OSCART Digital Signage Platform
Bespak use Signagelive to communicate and broadcast to employees across several UK sites.
Healthcare: Bespak is a global market leader in the design, development and manufacture of drug delivery devices, providing inhaler, autoinjector and nasal technologies, as well as development and manufacturing services.
Bespak is at the leading edge of innovation and is committed to investing in patient and customer driven innovation, with the potential to create new treatments, new markets, and new opportunities. Signagelive has been selected to refresh the company’s infrastructure.
Q: Tell us how you are using Signagelive?
A: Currently, we are using Signagelive to broadcast and communicate information to 19 screens across 3 of our UK sites, as well as recently introducing the Broadcast Player, which, in light of COVID-19 means our workforce who are WFH have the same access to communications as people on site.
Signagelive is used to display communications such as health and safety and quality messages (two of our main big focuses here when it comes to communications) as well as giving our colleagues the chance to display their own social messages such as birthdays or the birth of a new baby. We believe grouping this all together makes our screens the most engaging they can be with the content we receive.
Q: There are other SaaS based digital signage options out there, why did you choose Signagelive?
S: We chose Signagelive because it offered us the granular Enterprise features we required. We wanted to be able to really drill down into user permissions, schedule content and have complete control over layouts and design. Other tools may have been easier to get going ‘out of the box’ but we found that we soon outgrew their capabilities.
Q: What were the reasons for implementing a digital signage network?
A: Using e-mail for mass communication was something that had become heavily reliant on within our business, and quite frankly, people were bored of it. Communications sent out via email were often brushed over or dismissed and people began to stop seeing the information as important. It was clear to us that we needed a new, exciting way of getting our messages across. The digital signage network was part of a whole new host of internal communications methods being introduced across the business. We wanted to ensure there was a way people could receive relevant, inviting content without getting bored or seeing it as unimportant.
Q: How were these objectives being met previously?
A: Communications objectives were mainly being met via email, but this was by no means the most effective way of communication. As previously stated, messages became boring and unimportant fast, often being deleted before being read.
Q: How did you build a business case internally for Signagelive?
A: We ran a proof of concept with a low-cost signage platform to demonstrate why a signage platform was required. We then conducted research using case studies and Gartner’s magic quadrant to short list 3 products. We ran a feature assessment against all 3 products and scored them. We presented our findings and recommendations to our Operating Board who agreed with our recommendation, set the budget and gave us a “wish list” of features to deliver now and into the future.
Q: What is the best thing about Signagelive, in your opinion?
A: The usability of the platform. At first, when you are learning a new piece of software it can seem complicated and hard to ‘get the hang of’. However, with Signagelive, although we may have faced some hurdles in the very beginning, it soon became easy to use and had very little complications. This is something we find extremely useful as it means signage can be updated quickly and efficiently, without having to spend hours playing with content.
Q: What is your favourite feature?
A: The Marketplace has offered us many different features and add-ons for our screens which has really just given them that ‘finished look’. Using different time and weather widgets to fit our style of corporate branding and being able to add YouTube videos are things we have found extremely useful. As well as this, the unlimited cloud storage space is a much-appreciated added bonus.
Q: Did you face any challenges during any part of your project implementation? How were these resolved?
A: We did face some challenges along the way, specifically surrounding our templates for content. We use different colour schemes depending on what department/area of the business information is coming from, and to begin with we made and laid out our own set of templates for them to use. However, as a couple of weeks went past the feedback on these was average and we realised we were not happy with them. To resolve this, we brought in the design team from Signagelive and asked them to make a new set of these for us. This set is now used daily on our screens.
Q: How has business improved since using Signagelive?
A: Our communications process has become a lot smoother since using Signagelive. Colleagues are now aware of our process of adding content to screens instead of sending out communications via site wide emails. Across one of our smaller sites we have also seen a rise in engagement towards communications, with them really enjoying being able to use the screens for their social content such as birthdays and good luck messages.
Q: What advantages does Signagelive offer?
The ability to communicate quickly and effectively. You can choose how often your screens refresh, and this means if you have an urgent piece of content that needs to go up instantaneously this is not an issue. As well as this, the ability to be able to choose where certain pieces of content play. One of our sites has 9 buildings, and not every building wants to see the same content, so being able to tailor this to suit their needs is a big advantage for us.
Client summary
Overall, Signagelive has given our business the opportunity to become more engaging within our communications and offer us a solution better and more effective than email. It is something that we are enjoying using and will continue to use into the future. Rhiannon Moore, Marketing Apprentice, Bespak
Philips PDS’ HeartLine displays are bedside TVs designed specifically for the healthcare industry, providing improved patient comfort, while adhering to strict and sensitively hospital regulations around health, hygiene and, importantly, security.
With changes in technological advancements, the entire hospital required a major update to its cabling and connectivity as part of its ever-evolving ambitions to maintain the highest standards in modern comfort, including entertainments services and communications to its diverse range of patients.
Leading cloud-based management and control solutions provider, Tele-Signal Electronics’ OSCART IPTV technologies was selected to control and manage all content provided on each display – as well as monitors located in waiting rooms and reception areas – whether displaying specific messages (in a specific language) on a single or collective basis.
[bespak]“We ran a proof of concept with a low-cost signage platform to demonstrate why a signage platform was required. We then conducted research using case studies and Gartner’s magic quadrant to short list 3 products.”
{Bespak] The Marketplace has offered us many different features and add-ons for our screens which has really just given them that ‘finished look’. Using different time and weather widgets to fit our style of corporate branding and being able to add YouTube videos are things we have found extremely useful. As well as this, the unlimited cloud storage space is a much-appreciated added bonus.
