From PDF maps to an interactive hospital campus: Satasairaala

Finding your way around a hospital campus is rarely anyone’s favourite part of the day. Patients arriving for an appointment, relatives visiting a ward and new staff on their first shift all share the same question: where exactly do I need to go?

Satasairaala is the regional hospital of Satakunta, located in Pori. Its campus is a mix of buildings, entrances, wards and care units, and for years visitors found their way with the help of PDF maps.

Together with Satasairaala, we replaced those PDF maps with an interactive campus map. It is easier to use, fully branded and, most importantly, easy to keep up to date. Here’s how we got there.

An interactive map does much more than show the campus. Visitors can zoom in on exactly the area they need, tap buildings and entrances for details, and search instead of scanning a legend. Zoneatlas maps open in any browser on any device, whether on a phone, tablet or desktop.

The biggest difference is while on campus. By activating their location, visitors see where they are in real time, making it much easier to orient themselves. Users can find the correct building and head for the right entrance with ease. The search feature enables users to find specific wards and services much easier than from a traditional PDF, which matters on a hospital visit.

PDF maps have a big weakness: they are only as accurate as their latest version. And in a hospital setting, things are constantly changing. Wards move, entrances close for renovation and parking areas are rearranged. All of these changes meant editing the map file and exporting a new PDF, replacing the old one. Keeping the PDF map current was difficult and time-consuming leading the information to often be out of date.

The new map brings everything a visitor needs into one view that works just as well on a phone in the car park as on a desktop at home.

• Hospital buildings: click any building on the map to see more detailed information about it.
• Entrances: clear instructions for the hospital’s various entrances, wards and care units, so visitors know which door to head for before they arrive.
• Getting here: up-to-date information on parking spaces and bus stops.
• Search and more details: search for wards, services or buildings, jump straight to them on the map and get additional information.

With Manager’s customization features, the Satasairaala brand is fully integrated into the map: colours, logo and building styles all follow the hospital’s own visual identity. This ensures that the new map feels familiar to old PDF users.

A hospital campus packs a lot into a small area, so the map is built to stay readable. Buildings are shown in 3D, helping visitors match what they see on screen with what is in front of them. Points of interest are prioritized: the most important places, such as main entrances, are always visible, while nearby points cluster together when zoomed out and appear as you zoom in.

The biggest change is behind the scenes. The map is maintained in Zoneatlas Manager, our browser-based map editor. When a ward moves or an entrance is temporarily closed, hospital staff update the location and publish the change in minutes, with no PDF to redo. The 3D buildings are fully editable directly in Manager too, so when the campus changes, the map can follow without any external tools.

Running a hospital, university or other large campus? Read more about our solution for venues and campuses or hit us up with a message — we’d love to show you what’s possible!