Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre has become the first hospital in Victoria to offer accessible digital wayfinding for patients, staff, and visitors, through its hospital-wide launch of Australian digital wayfinding solution, BindiMaps.
The newly-installed service has been specifically developed to work indoors with a 10 to 20 times higher accuracy than GPS can provide for indoor locations.
For instance, satellites and GPS can only pinpoint location to around 20 metres, and are often inaccurate indoors, compared to the 1-2 metre accuracy indoors that BindiMaps offers.
The new service will allow all Peter Mac patients, staff, and visitors – including in particular those with vision impairment or a disability – to precisely navigate the hospital with significantly greater ease and accuracy via a simple mobile app.
The app uses sophisticated navigation algorithms and a network of Bluetooth beacons and smartphone sensors to offer users a choice of audio directions, text, or map view throughout the hospital, providing accurate, real-time, and step-by-step directions to any destination.
It was developed with the help of hundreds of blind and vision impaired users, to ensure the highest levels of accessibility and inclusivity in its design as possible.
Studies of digital wayfinding tools for people with visual impairments have found wayfinding support increases confidence and autonomy, which is crucial for quality of life.
BindiMaps has already partnered with St. Vincent’s Hospital Sydney and the Sydney Eye Hospital in New South Wales to improve accessibility for patients and visitors.
According to BindiMaps, there is a high need to improve accessible wayfinding in the Australia-wide hospital system, for the sake of patients and visitors, to improve staff satisfaction and retention and, critically, to reduce the burden on our healthcare system as a whole.
