May 2012
LogicJunction's wayfinding solution receives mention in Kevin Baker's What's New America? blog recently.
In blogging about his recent experience at the Cleveland Clinic, Baker identifies LogicJunction's avatar-based wayfinding kiosk as one of many factors resulting in his "experience of wellness!"
http://www.whatsnewamerica.com/2012/03/monday-35-startup-cleveland-clinic.html
July 2011
In the right direction - Wayfinding just isn't about signage any longer
According to Craig Knowles, three out of four people visiting a hospital are heading toward a destination they've never been to before. Not surprisingly then, he says, one of the biggest complaints hospital visitors have is getting lost.
"Most people who are coming to your hospital have never been there before and are very stressed," says Knowles, general manager of LogicJunction, a Beachwood, Ohio-based software company specializing in hospital way-finding tools. "Hospital buildings get placed wherever they find real estate, and then a campus can just grow and grow. Everyone is always building and tearing down or moving."
LogicJunction started in Atlanta and then moved to the Cleveland area and got into the hospital way-finding business around 2009 with a custom-built touch-screen kiosk at Lake Health's West Medical Center in Willoughby, Ohio. "At Lake West, they had to shut down the main elevator in the hospital," Knowles recalls, so the information was inputted into the way-finding kiosk and visitors were given alternate routes. Instructions are given via text or audio spoken by an onscreen avatar that has multiple language options.
LogicJunction then recreated that application in triplicate with three kiosks installed at Lake Health's TriPoint Medical Center in Concord Township before tackling its first mega-project: Cleveland Clinic.
"The Cleveland Clinic has many, many buildings and is always in a state of flux," Knowles says, explaining that the way-finding system there keeps track of the ever-changing landscape and has become a popular tool for new staff orientation.
The company is now doing the same at 615-bed Sarasota (Fla.) Memorial Hospital, which is in the middle of a $250 million, 220-bed replacement renovation project that includes a new $186 million patient tower.
"They're building a huge addition right in the middle of everything," Knowles says, explaining the need for a sophisticated way-finding tool.
Although LogicJunction's technology can send travel instructions as a phone text message or as an e-mail, Knowles says iPhone applications may not be worth the cost (about an additional $150,000 to $170,000) just because of the demographics of the target audience.
Not all way-finding elements are high-tech. They can include your standard directional signs and, for campuses that evolved in a somewhat haphazard fashion, they can incorporate new architectural features that help tie together disparate sections and create a sense of unity.
"With new construction, I find it to be a much easier project than a renovation," says Chris Bauer, managing principal of focusEGD, a Dallas-based environmental graphics design firm, who describes how landscape features, artwork or atriums, major building entrances, cafes or other constructed features can be used as landmarks that help orient first-time visitors.
Bauer also recommends breaking down large buildings into "zones," such as what was done with the 250-bed, 2 million-square-foot Seattle Children's Hospital, a seven-story structure built into a hillside that allows it to have entrances on its first, fourth, fifth and sixth floors.
"Wherever you're coming in from, you feel like you're on the first floor," she says, adding that the size of the 1953-vintage building (retrofitted in 1978) also increased the need for way-finding. "Two million square feet," she says. "The general public can't get their arms around that, so it's broken into smaller zones."
Often, these can be simply labeled Zone A, Zone B and so on, but at Seattle Children's there is the balloon zone, giraffe zone, rocket zone and whale zone. Similarly, in the process where the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., is merging with the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington to become in September the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bauer says her team adapted by "learning the language" and culture of the military healthcare system-even though they may have thought it wouldn't be understood by a majority of the general public.
They also had to be subtle and sensitive in changing a Navy hospital into an institution serving all military branches. She says military-themed icons were created to guide visitors through the seven new zones of the hospital such as the Hero Zone, which includes tributes to decorated medical personnel from each branch.
Bauer says they were asked to do the same for the new $394 million Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton (Calif.) replacement facility that is set to open in 2014, but she says zoning would not work there. So, instead, an "anchoring" technique is being employed using the main north and south elevator banks. "Not every technique is appropriate for every building," she says.
At the Veteran Affairs Department Long Beach (Calif.) Healthcare System's new Blind Rehabilitation Center, Outpatient Clinic and Educational Resource Center, a design featuring roofs with extended canopies designed to mimic undulating waves was incorporated into the new buildings that quickly establishes where the entrances are while adding a unifying element to the campus.
"We took the opportunity at Long Beach to give them a whole new image and a whole new unifying look to the front of their facility," says Scott Mackey, associate principal at Lee, Burkhart, Liu architects. "Signs are OK, but it's a whole lot easier to orient yourself with a major architectural form-when you see those wave forms, it draws you to them aesthetically."
He calls the waves "a grand gesture" and notes how, originally, the new facilities were to be built on vacant sites independent of each other and with a hodge podge of building facades, but now there is "a structural visual identity."
Andis Robeznieks - Modern Healthcare Magazine
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110725/MAGAZINE/110729966
June 2011
Vendors roll out the next generation of health care signage
New technologies are advancing rapidly in the world of digital wayfinding. From electronic kiosks and lighted message boards to high-definition screens and wireless handheld devices, vendors are coming up with new ways to help patients and visitors navigate hospitals.
More hospitals are using high-tech digital signage, such as information kiosks, light-emitting diode (LED) message boards and handheld devices, to provide wayfinding help to patients and visitors.
This signage provides quick-changing, on-demand information that traditional, static formats cannot. Moreover, the growth of digital health care signage is riding the wave of new instant-communications technologies and may open up a new world to hospitals characterized by smart phones and other interactive tools.
However, digital signage always must be considered part of the overall signage program and be designed carefully into each facility.
Digital advances
"Digital signage has been used with success by hospitals all over the United States for the past five years, primarily as a communications tool," says Craig Knowles, general manager of LogicJunction's Wayfinding Division (www.logicjunction.com), Cleveland. "We're just now seeing the emergence of the next generation of advanced interactive wayfinding, which includes handheld devices, wireless, large-format systems and dynamic mapping technologies."
At its most basic, digital signage improves the hospital experience for patients and visitors. Along with providing much-needed directions within complex facilities, it increases the efficiency of the admissions process.
Read more...
Health Facilities Management Magazine - Neal Lorenzi
http://www.hfmmagazine.com/hfmmagazine_app/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HFMMAGAZINE/Article/data/06JUN2011/0611HFM_FEA_Marketplace&domain=HFMMAGAZINE
June 2011
LogicJunction finds its niche with wayfinding avatars at hospitals
Meet Marie. She's welcoming - a little stiff and a bit of a know-it-all, perhaps - but she'll help you navigate the winding pathways of the Cleveland Clinic's sprawling main campus. Marie isn't a real person, but rather an animated Clinic employee displayed on an electronic kiosk. She dons the same red jacket as the health system's human greeters, though, and she's helped hundreds of Clinic visitors reach their destinations by offering step-by-step directions that can be printed or sent to someone's phone. Marie also has provided a much-needed boost to her developer, LogicJunction, a software company in Beachwood that, according to its leaders, was struggling to gain momentum until it delved into the health care field over the last year.
The 10-year-old company, which moved to Northeast Ohio from Atlanta about six years ago, focuses on developing customized avatars, or computer-generated characters. By coupling the avatars with navigation software, LogicJunction officials said, they've found a segment of the market with an illustrated need, according to Mark Jowell, the company's CEO. "We've really focused on way-finding in health care," Mr. Jowell said.
The company previously worked primarily as a custom shop creating an array of avatars for a number of specific uses - an arrangement that requires a hefty amount of resources and manpower. For one, LogicJunction designed an avatar for use at the Western Reserve Historical Society's complex in University Circle to act as a museum curator to educate visitors. Likewise, the company designed a "virtual tour guide" for General Electric's education center in Schenectady, N.Y., to inform visitors about the company's role in developing power systems.
Though he wouldn't provide figures, Mr. Jowell said LogicJunction has experienced revenue growth over the last three years and is "poised to grow significantly over the next year" given its success with the wayfinding software. In addition to the Clinic, Logic-Junction's clients include the Lake Health system in Lake County and Sarasota Memorial Health Care System in Florida. LogicJunction still provides avatars for a number of other non-health care clients as well, including a "virtual insurance agent" for the Cleveland-based Council of Smaller Enterprises. Recent exposure at a few health care industry conferences, including the Clinic's Patient Experience Summit held last month, have sparked interest in the company's products, which Mr. Jowell said is a sign LogicJunction is moving in the right direction. "We've got a lot of confirmation in what we're doing," he said.
All about the patient
In the ever-competitive health care business in Northeast Ohio, care providers always are looking for ways to improve patient experiences, according to Mary Curran, senior director for special projects at the Clinic. The avatars help achieve that goal, as the kiosks also display activities around the Clinic campus, such as yoga classes, concerts or massages - events she said the hospital has had difficulty promoting in the past.
"We try to take the health care experience to a whole other level," Ms. Curran said. "It's not just about sickness and health, but we want to give you something to do while you wait." The Clinic, which has two kiosks and others on the way, isn't looking to replace its army of 38 "red coats," or Clinic employees donning red jackets who help patients and their families navigate its main campus. Rather, Ms. Curran said installing the kiosks is about giving patients "tools at their fingertips."
Last fall, Lake Health installed kiosks in the lobbies at Lake West Medical Center in Willoughby and TriPoint Medical Center in Concord Township as a method to ease anxiety and confusion when patients and their families enter the hospitals.
"From people who are using digital technology, we've had very positive feedback," said Diane Weber, director of radiology at Lake Health. "In some ways, it's clearer than the volunteer or somebody at desk giving directions."
Crain's Cleveland - Timothy Magaw
http://crainscleveland.com/article/20110613/SUB1/306139986&template=printart
April 2011
LogicJunction aims to make hospital navigation easy
Software developer LogicJunction hopes its Wayfinder touch-screen kiosk makes getting lost at hospitals a thing of the past.
The Cleveland-area company's interactive kiosks employ a talking avatar to help patients and visitors navigate the sometimes-confusing and sprawling layouts of hospitals, and features maps and step-by-step instructions that can be printed or sent to phones via text message. (Another Cleveland-area company, Intelligent Mobile Support, provided the text-messaging functionality.) "We're basically doing a Google Maps for interior spaces," said Ed Wagner, LogicJunction's director of sales.
Three hospitals, including Cleveland Clinic and Lake Health in Northeast Ohio, have installed Wayfinders so far, but Wagner sees a potential U.S. market of about 2,500. That is, roughly half the nation's 5,000 hospitals are large and complex enough that their visitors would benefit from navigation systems.
With more hospitals focusing on improving patient experience - and new technology becoming readily available - helping patients navigate layouts figures to become a higher priority for hospital administrators. And data suggests that hospital design and layout plays a key role in patient safety and satisfaction.
One study of a major tertiary care hospital calculated the annual cost of "wayfinding" at $220,000 - mainly due to the time spent direction-giving (more than 4,500 staff hours) by people other than information staff, according to a report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Cleveland Clinic's use of LogicJunction's Wayfinder is an example of its increased emphasis on patient experience. "We are very focused on enhancing the patient experience and making our healthcare environment easy to navigate," said Mary Curran, senior director of special projects at Cleveland Clinic. "We are continuously exploring new ways of improving this for our patients." (As a nonprofit, the Clinic can't endorse products, so Curran declined to answer specific questions about LogicJunction's Wayfinder, a spokeswoman said.)
Read more...
Below is a demonstration of LogicJunction's Wayfinder in action at Cleveland Clinic.
MedCity News
http://www.medcitynews.com/2011/04/logicjunction-aims-to-make-hospital-navigation-easy/
LogicJunction Inc.
23950 Commerce Park Road
Beachwood, OH 44122
Phone: (877) 286-2631
Fax: (216) 292-6661