For every business, “customer care” represents a complex combination of tangible and intangible factors. Awnings enable businesses to show they care by improving aesthetic appeal and by providing protection from the elements. While that can help boost reputation and sales for any business, for hospitals it can actually increase your chances of federal funding.
Who knew you’d need a hospital awning strategy?
Hospital administrators grapple daily with worries about income and profitability, in the face of mounting pressure to reduce costs, empty beds caused by those cost-cutting measures, generally difficult economic times and Medicare’s steadily diminishing reimbursements. And now your reimbursements are based in part on patient assessments. If you don’t score a 9 or 10, you get no credit at all for those patients.
Especially here in New York, patients have extremely high expectations regarding what constitutes a “great” stay. Top-quality medical treatment is just the beginning. They want tasty food and responsive staff, but surveys show patients also want amenities. They want attractive, modern rooms and other features that define a “caring atmosphere.”
That starts at the curb.
Here are five ways your hospital can use awnings to bolster your chances of scoring those coveted 9s and 10s from patients:
1. Awnings make your hospital easier to find.
Rarely are people relaxed when they need a hospital, and your facility is large and confusing. Patients and their visitors are worried, upset, hurried – the last thing they need is a visual run-around that only exacerbates the situation. With consistent branding, awnings make your hospital easily identifiable. Those that double as signage make it easy for people to spot where they need to go once they reach your campus.
2. Awnings and canopies cover walkways.
A dry place to walk from the car to the entrance, or between buildings, is the least you can offer people who may be ill or injured or concerned about their loved ones. If visitors fear they may get soaked by rain or have to trudge through snow to get inside, they may be reluctant to visit friends and family, leaving your patients alone and depressed.
Your employees will appreciate a dry hike from their car to the door, too. Walkway canopies also make wayfinding easier for visitors unfamiliar with your building layout.
3. Awnings define and protect entrances.
It’s especially important to protect entrances from the elements, for both comfort and safety. To make it even easier to keep snow away from entry areas and give people a transition space from outdoors, you can add awning walls to create an exterior vestibule.
4. Vehicle entrances need coverage, too.
Ambulance crews arriving at your emergency intake require space to work quickly, protected from blazing summer sun as well as winter weather. As with pedestrian entrances, you can add see-through walls to these areas, to deflect wind, rain, snow, blowing dust or debris that could cause additional discomfort or harm to patients or impede the work of medical staff.
5. Awnings make your hospital more approachable.
They soften the “institutional” look of medical facilities. Designed in the right colors and styles, they convey a sense of comfort and welcome, building confidence and trust.
Remember, patient ratings may affect your Medicare and Medicaid payments, but surveys go to younger patients as well as those covered by Medicare. That means you have to please your entire spectrum of patients, not to mention their visitors.
Awnings can’t do anything to improve your food or the bedside manner of your medical staff, and they certainly can’t make you a superior medical center. But awnings can improve your hospital’s accessibility and aesthetics and send a clear message that yours is a place of emotional and physical comfort. And isn’t that worth a 9 or a 10?
