What are wayfinding committees? Can they be beneficial for health care facilities? A wayfinding committee is comprised of people from multiple departments across a health care facility who work to implement an effective wayfinding solution across the entire organization. The size of the committee will depend on the size of the facility it serves, but it should include:

1. a core group of decision makers
2. people from departments that have the greatest interest in effective wayfinding
3. professionals trained in the science of wayfinding

Expansion and Changes

Health care facilities have experienced tremendous growth, not only in the size and complexity of their campuses but also in how many people they serve and the intricacies of their budgets. With all this growth, it’s important for people who work in different departments to come together and reach a consensus on something as crucial to day-to-day operations as wayfinding. By putting together a wayfinding committee, a health care facility can come up with a system that maintains consistency through all phases of its implementation.

Relevant Information

In our modern age, people are partaking of more and more information from health care facilities, and wayfinding committees can help delineate what’s most important to communicate for wayfinding so the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise. Since wayfinding committees are composed of people who can speak for multiple departments and various aspects of the process of implementing and maintaining a wayfinding solution, they can better organize information pertaining to wayfinding and make sure it’s optimally communicated to those who need it.

Technology

Another development of the modern age has been a revolution in technology. People have become accustomed to using technology to access information with tremendous speed, and they expect health care facilities to likewise impart wayfinding information quickly and efficiently. Wayfinding committees can work to integrate high technology solutions such as digital kiosks into a wayfinding solution as well as making the information simple to access over the internet, whether from home or mobile devices. Doing this smoothly requires a facility-wide effort.

Communication across departments is vital for modern health care, since campuses and the technology they use have grown more sophisticated and complex. Wayfinding committees are of great benefit for health care facilities since they represent a means of putting into place solutions that are deemed workable by all. Coordinated efforts by wayfinding committees to provide solutions that help people find their way around will lead to positive experiences for patients, staff, and everybody concerned.