Indoor wayfinding is coming to the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s medical complex as UAB Medicine will deploy the MediNavTM Navigator Edition 2.0 wayfinding system from Connexient for UAB Hospital and the Kirklin Clinic. The innovative app, geared toward hospitals and health systems, is a digital wayfinder that provides indoor GPS to patients, visitors and staff.
MediNavTM provides rich indoor maps, “blue dot” indoor navigation and location-based services. The app is powered by Bluetooth LE Beacon technology, which emits radio transmissions between the phone and installed fixed locations. It is available on iOs and Android.
Work on the wayfinding system is underway. Due to the size and complexity of the UAB Medicine campus, the system is not expected to be fully operational until summer 2017.
In addition to enhancing the overall patient experience to increase customer satisfaction, MediNavTM can reduce missed or late appointments and improve operational efficiency. The cost to the nation’s health care system from missed appointments is estimated to be as much as $150 billion.
Among MediNavTM features are:
- True turn-by-turn indoor navigation — with voice prompts, off-route notification, visual landmark references and more.
- Parking Planner and My Car Saver — features that navigate users to the best parking location based on their appointment location inside the facility and saves their car’s location for easy return when they are finished.
- All Screens Solution — ensuring patients and visitors can access vital information anytime and anywhere across mobile, web, kiosks and digital signage.
- Outdoor + Indoor, Networkwide Wayfinding — guiding users across all the challenges of a campus or even networks of facilities.
- Mobile Application SDKs and Web APIs — to enable integration of maps and navigation into existing mobile and web applications.
“As one of the largest academic medical centers in the nation, UAB Medicine’s Birmingham campus comprises more than 4 million square feet of buildings, plus multiple parking facilities,” said Reid Jones, COO of UAB Medicine. “Connexient’s all-screens solution and turn-by-turn blue-dot mobile navigation will be a valuable resource for our patients, visitors and staff to easily find their way on our large campus. We also see many future opportunities to improve operational efficiency, campus safety and more by integrating the MediNav SDK and web APIs with other enterprise applications.”
“Our deployment at UAB Medicine marks one of our largest deployments yet,” said Mark Green, Connexient CEO. “Beyond size, however, what makes it so exciting is the strategic vision UAB Medicine has for how navigation-quality indoor maps and navigation services can positively impact the entire enterprise. We look forward to working together to drive innovation and value for their patients, visitors and staff."