Blog
Wayfinding often hampered by med speak
Healthcare Design magazine blog examines how word choice, acronyms can confuse hospital visitors
A blog by Healthcare Design magazine Editor-in-Chief Kristin Zeit recently discussed designer Kate Keating's wayfinding research. Keating's two-year study presented patients, visitors and other potential users with terminology currently used at a hospital in signage and other communications, and tested how well the terms were understood. According to the blog, only four out of 23 acronyms tested were correctly identified half the time or better. One hundred percent of those tested said they prefer layman’s terminology on signage over technical medical names.
Read the blog.
April 9, 2014
Topic Area:
Interior Design
Recent Posts
Assumptions about equipment failures and response times change when a hospital is hundreds of miles from the nearest major city.
The project broke ground in April 2024.
The planned hospital will be located where HCA Florida Cape Coral Emergency currently operates.
The most successful plans go further to unlock smarter investments, improve resilience and enable better patient outcomes.
Creating a secure, standardized data foundation can help facilities teams put AI to work more effectively.