Improving the Patient Parking Experience

August, 2021

The number one priority for hospitals, clinics and medical campuses is patient health and experience. That starts with an effortless, stress-free arrival in the parking lot or garage. However, one common problem always seems to get in the way of giving patients that easy and welcoming experience. Employee parking! 

In a perfect world, we would always have space available close to your final destination.

One of the most common healthcare employee parking problems is organization of the lot. We all know that the employees, nurses and doctors are the backbone of our healthcare experience. Yet, despite their critical role as frontline heroes, there are those that get to the hospital and take the prime parking spots right in the front of the hospital or clinic. Maybe it’s raining…or they don’t want to walk or take a shuttle to a nearby lot dedicated for team members. 

In a perfect world, we would always have space available close to your final destination, but we must be mindful of reserving those valuable, accessible spaces for patients in need. Those patients that are physically in pain and struggle to walk across the entire parking lot. Or those family members who are extremely rushed to get inside to talk to a loved one for the last time. The hospital parking world is a unique and important one. 

So, how do you organize and take control of this important problem? 

You could give employees hang tags or stickers and then issue a citation or record the vehicle who is in violation. But what if the employee simply hides their hang tag or removes their sticker? At that point, how do you know it is their car? If you have ever administered parking tags, then you know how much fun it is to issue and reclaim hang tags and stickers consistently as people join or leave the team. It is inefficient, time-consuming and becomes a full-time job.

You could invest hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars into parking equipment across the campus. However, most of us know legacy parking equipment is a nightmare to install, consistently breaks down, and takes ages to get upgrades approved by leadership. 

So, what is the solution?

Create a frictionless patient focused parking experience. 

Patient and Visitor Parking. Get your patients and visitors closer to your front door.

Concierge Services. Friendly welcoming greeters and ambassadors for hospital navigation and questions alleviate patient and visitor anxiety.

Digital Permits. Digital permits ensure staff, employees and vendors are parked in their designated parking locations.

Zones & Space Optimization. Create short-term areas for Drop Off / Pickup and vendor deliveries.

By adding frictionless parking tools like patient and visitor check-in kiosks and cloud-based parking permits for staff and team members, you can track who’s parking where and get real-time visibility data insights and control making it easier to make continuous improvements to the guest’s parking experience.

Erin Kabbash is Market President & Healthcare Vertical Leader at Premium Parking. He can be reached at ekabbash@premiumparking.com