Patient education and health promotion specialist Healthily has joined forces with Hills Health Solutions to launch Healthily TV, which is now available at more than 18,000 beds in 80 hospitals across the country.

Hills Health Solutions’ head of health, Darren Osborne, said Healthily TV provides dedicated patient education and entertainment.

“Our patient audience is growing as hospitals become increasingly aware of Healthily TV’s value in improving patient experience and outcomes,” he said.

Dr Tina Campbell, founder of Healthily and a specialist in patient storytelling, believes the new network will have a positive impact on the health of Australians.

“The content on each channel is designed to entertain and build the viewers knowledge, skills and confidence to manage their health to the best of their ability,”she said.

Patients, and their family and friends, have access to three main channel types – Healthily’s free generic patient education channel, free ward-specific education channels, and paid movie/commercial TV channels – each offering unique and targeted advertising opportunities, according to Campbell.

“The patient’s hospital room, unlike waiting rooms, provides a one-on-one engagement with the screen and the health content,” she said.

“We can offer an effective combination of both reach and frequency for our advertisers, given patients stay on average between 2.3 and 3.2 days per visit*, and ads, advertorials or sponsored health content are shown across all free and the paid movie channels.

In Healthily’s evidence-based content library, hundreds of people share their diverse health experiences in fascinating and informative video case studies.

“Patients are interested, engaged and receptive to health messages from people sharing their personal stories about specific health conditions,” Campbell said.

“Research shows this engagement improves patient confidence about self-management of their conditions.”

Osborne said the launch of Healthily TV comes at an exciting time.

“The imminent introduction of new interactive touch screens to hospitals will further boost patients’ engagement with the content,” he said.

“The IPTV screens will give patients access fun, interactive entertainment and education experiences, including quizzes and games.

“These quizzes and games can incentivise or reward patients in creative and fun ways for actively engaging with the content.”

Campbell said Healthily will also trial providing patients with functionality that will enable them to send educational content to themselves or their carers via its GoShare Healthcare online content sharing platform.

“This will enable them to create and send themselves content bundles, via email or SMS, so they can continue to learn more about self-managing their condition after their hospital visit,” she said.

“The digital distribution of educational material is our key focus. The digital content complements the face-to-face interaction with a health provider. It is all about scale, it is all about taking a very holistic, efficient and effective approach to health promotion.”

* Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia’s hospitals 2014–15 at a Glance: Health services series no. 70 July 2016. p. 19.