Finding the Way – Implementing Greater “Findability” in your Healthcare Facility

How do you guide nearly 20,000 students around a historic university while directing the people who make more than 650,000 visits a year to the university's Health System? That was the challenge facing facility planners at the University of Virginia. A panel discussion will review the various ways that the planners continue to meet those challenges, from research and creation of a Wayfinding Master Plan to development of a comprehensive new signage system to a Web-based series of maps that will familiarize visitors with their intended destinations before they ever set foot on the grounds.

The new signage system relies on color and typography to guide the students, staff and visitors first to the appropriate campus and then to the specific destinations within the campus. Careful differentiation between academic, athletic and Health System signage has been a key to the success of this initiative. An online wayfinding system helps orient visitors to the medical center via the Internet before they arrive at the campus, by using a series of maps of various resolutions to let Web surfers zoom in on their location and view pictures of the building façades that they will need to look for when they arrive.

The key to an effective wayfinding strategy is alignment among internal groups. If physicians, staff, volunteers and others with responsibility for communicating wayfinding information have a consistent, easy to access resource for staying up to date, the system as a whole will be more effective.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon completion of the seminar, participants will be able to perform the following:

• Identify techniques for implementing greater "findability" in your facility
• Review various approaches for gathering and analyzing data to aid in the planning of the wayfinding system
• Identify wayfinding “trouble spots” and solutions for resolving them
• Recognize how effective wayfinding can affect patient satisfaction directly through nuts-and-bolts issues such as improved traffic flow, parking efficiencies, security, etc.
• Realize the benefits of incorporating many potential deliverables into a broader wayfinding strategy, and the importance of taking a global view of your organization with respect to naming, communications, facility planning, circulation patterns, etc.

Who Should Attend?

• Facility Managers
• Facility Engineers
• Construction Managers
• Architects
• Designers