April 13, 2022

VITEC’s integrated IPTV and digital signage solution has made it simple for Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue, WA, to provide patients and staff with managed access to different categories of content — whether VoD, in-house videos, proprietary programming or OTA broadcasts – via a streamlined system that is robust, reliable and simple to use. The hospital has significantly improved the patient experience and delivers increased value for all of its stakeholders.
The rise of ‘distributed enterprises’
Healthcare providers are using digital signage and IPTV systems to manage ongoing Covid challenges, and subsequently recognising how AV systems can improve patient experience, says Colin Farquhar, senior vice president sales, at VITECHealthcare providers are increasingly relying on IPTV and digital signage to interact with patients and visitors, welcoming them on site, providing instructions, reinforcing guidelines, and sharing policy updates in public areas. IPTV and digital signage technologies have played a major role in onsite communications at healthcare facilities before Covid and then at each stage of the pandemic.
Although Covid-19 vaccination programs are being rolled out around the world, the reality of new variants changing circumstances, or the possibility of another type of outbreak means that being prepared to rapidly adapt and provide up-to-date communications to staff, patients and others who are onsite will remain of critical importance to hospitals and other medical facilities.

Many facilities now use digital signage to efficiently update staff across various locations, including break rooms, treatment zones and admission areas. These displays can quickly distribute critical information such as policy changes, patient information, staff rosters, operation schedules, ongoing training opportunities, human resources information and, perhaps most critically, patient intake statuses.

By linking digital signage to hospital management systems, these critical updates can be dynamically created and displayed on defined screens with little human interaction – saving time and effort. Another big plus for digital signage in an evolving situation is that an organisation can easily add more screens to the network and update these remotely in real time. And, critically, digital signage can be used to trigger emergency alerts and messaging.To effectively deal with individuals who still require treatment at medical facilities worldwide amid ongoing social distancing requirements and other restrictions, many healthcare providers are finding new ways to interact with visitors and patients through innovative IPTV and digital signage technologies.

Neurilink, based in Boise, Idaho (with an office in Seattle) was chosen as the AV systems integrator for Overlake’s project and started work in March 2020, the same time as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic began to be felt around the world.

You could say the timing was challenging,” comments Laura Moorhead, Senior Account Executive at, Neurilink. “But we just had to adapt, as everyone else was at the time. We had such a great team on the project that we just worked through the situation together to make sure we delivered successfully on the project.

Transitioning to new consumption habits
Neurilink worked with Exterity (which was acquired by VITEC in April 2021), to design an IPTV system that would satisfy the varying demands of the hospital staff and patients alike.

Each of the new patient rooms in the new wing at Overlake contains a hospital-grade display complete with a simple, intuitive user interface custom-designed by the team. For convenience, the menu is navigated with the ‘nurse call’ pillow-speaker remote so that a single device is all that is needed for the patient to be in full control.

Having the right technologies in place to manage and provide effective and safe communications, whether to personal devices or onsite in public and closed areas at hospitals, clinics, and other facilities, has been essential.

last edited on: Monday, February 13, 2023