Mercy Center Nursing Unit in Dallas, PA includes a skilled nursing facility and a personal care unit. Operated by the Sisters of Mercy for both religious and lay people, it offers care that is centered around compassion and tenderness in an atmosphere that treats each person with dignity and respect for the sacredness of life. Mercy Center turned to StrandVision to help communicate with the residents.
Mercy Center provides a safe and caring environment for its 140 residents. Each resident's room is equipped with comfortable furniture and a television that carries the local cable TV service, as well as an in-house channel that Mercy Center can use for private programming within the institution.
In the past, Mercy Center used the channel to broadcast daily Mass; however, the channel is otherwise available for additional programming.
Guyette Communications, a local systems integrator that had previously performed security and communications systems work for Mercy Center, proposed a digital signage system from StrandVision. They explained that the StrandVision Digital Signage system could be connected to the cable head end.
StrandVision's Internet-based delivery and Content Management System (CMS) is easy to use and would enable the staff to provide frequent menu and activities updates to supplement notices posted in the elevators and at nursing stations.
Now, the cable system carries StrandVision Digital Signage programming that includes a Welcome Screen, as well as information streams that include:
The StrandVision system has four authorized administrators. Rich Heiser, who oversees the facility's digital signage, information technology and other systems, checks in on the system each day. The dietary manager and the two chief coordinators of activities for the skilled and personal care units are the content providers.
The contributors frequently use StrandVision's scheduling feature. The dietary manager visits StrandVision's CMS once a week, while the activities coordinators log in every few days. "They post their menus or events and arrange to have them displayed over the system on the proper day. It saves time and makes it simpler," said Rich.
Guyette handled the technical details. The mix of TVs in the rooms that included both older CRT and newer LCD units with different aspect ratios presented the biggest challenge. Rich said, "We had to play with the picture resolution so that it wasn't stretched and everybody was happy. Whatever connects to the cable network can be used with the StrandVision system."
The system is working well. "Feedback from the residents is that they really like it," commented Rich. "We'd like to add a few monitors in our lobbies on both our personal care and skilled nursing sides. We'd even consider running different programming in some of the lobby areas."
Since the existing cable network provides the digital signage system backbone, any expansion would be relatively easy - technicians would just connect the new units to the network and then select the in-house channel.