Virginia Family Dentistry was founded in 1974 by Dr. Baxter Perkinson as a small dental office. Today it is a multi-specialty group practice with 16 locations around Richmond, Virginia, and more than 60 dentists and specialists.
The challenge: paper posters that nobody updates
The practice wanted to get away from old, static paper posters. Dental clinics see all kinds of patients, and the team wanted information to reach them in a more modern and engaging way.
Marketing Manager Janella Baanante builds the playlists and keeps the screens up to date together with the IT department. The first hurdle was choosing media players. She used Find a Player on playsignage.com to compare them and picked Google Chromecast with Google TV: simple and cost-effective.
The solution: test one screen, then roll out
Janella set up the first screen herself to test it. Doing the setup on her own also gave her the knowledge to help the clinics with technical questions later.
The team liked the result and launched Play in all 16 locations at the beginning of 2020, when COVID-19 hit. The screens told patients about safety precautions, introduced the dentists and special teams, and promoted the staff.
Two things decided it for them:
- Pricing and à la carte options: they pay for what they need.
- Scheduling: messages and events are planned ahead and change by themselves, without anybody watching over them.
“Play covers all our needs and provides great flexibility!” – Janella Baanante
The result
Not everybody was enthusiastic at first. Some staff loved the screens, while others went back to regular TV as soon as something didn’t work. Janella taught them what to do, and now most are comfortable with the screens and like them. Patients get up-to-date information in every clinic, and scheduling saves the team a lot of time.
What other clinics can take from this
- Choose players that suit your content and budget before you buy screens.
- Test on one screen, learn the setup yourself, then roll out.
- Plan for a short learning period for staff, and show them what to do when something goes wrong.
Read the full Virginia Family Dentistry case story, or see how Play works for healthcare.
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