An entertaining wait

There was a time when the only entertainment Precious Tindall of Stamford found in her doctor's office was outdated magazines. But when Tindall showed up at the Stamford offices of husband- and-wife general practitioners Ravinder and Sadhana Alaigh for her appointment Tuesday, she found more than a stack of old periodicals.

Instead, there was a large plasma television mounted on the wall of the office waiting room, broadcasting snippets from a variety of news magazine shows. For instance, during her time in the office, Tindall saw a "CBS Sunday Morning" segment on a museum dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, and a clip from "The Early Show" on eye care.

The clips were courtesy of The Healium Waiting Room Network, a new viewing channel that shows clips from news and entertainment programs in doctor's offices across the country. The goal is to make patients more comfortable as they wait for their physicians, and to take their minds off of why they're there. Tindall said she's been to her doctor's office a few times recently, has noticed the TV and enjoys the programming.

"It's more entertaining than sitting here reading a magazine or listening to an iPod," Tindall said. "It shows a lot of educational stuff."

Healium was created by AVTV Networks, a new media company based in Hackensack, N.J., and was launched about a year ago. It now reaches about 300,000 viewers monthly.

The service has an arrangement with CBS to provide excerpts from the network's shows, including "60

Minutes" and "Inside Edition," and even classic series like "The Honeymooners." The service also allows doctors to add their own material to the programming, such as a reminder to patients to update their insurance information. With Americans making nearly one billion visits to a private doctor every year, most patients expect to sit in their doctor's waiting room for a significant period of time, said AVTV founder and president, Yigal Marcus.

Unfortunately, Marcus said, the waiting time is likely to get longer in the near future. "The baby boom generation is about to retire," he said. "When you retire, you tend to go to the doctor more often." The goal of Healium is to entertain patients and "significantly decrease the perceived waiting time," Marcus said.

Dr. Ravinder Alaigh said he's had Healium in his office slightly longer than six months, and, so far, it's been successful. Though he said the average wait in his office is only about 15 minutes, it can sometimes be longer and Healium prevents patients from getting anxious.

"It keeps them entertained, and they stop looking at their watches," Alaigh said.

The service costs $50 a month, a fee that includes the wall-mounted plasma television, which Alaigh said was a major selling point.

Television in the waiting room isn't a new idea. There are other services designed for doctors' offices, such as CNN's AccentHealth, which provides programming on health-related topics to more than 10,000 doctors' offices nationwide. But Marcus said Healium is unique, in that it focuses less on medical programming and more on entertainment. The entertainment format was selected over more health-focused programming at the request of patients, who overwhelmingly said they wanted interesting, "feel-good" programming in their doctor's waiting room.

Patients in a doctor's office "are stressed out," Marcus said. "They don't want to be there. They want to be distracted."

That's what Barbara Gelston of Stamford wanted while sitting in the Alaighs' office on Tuesday. During her wait, she was treated to a clip from "The Honeymooners," and enjoyed it.

"It's relaxing," she said. "It takes your mind off of why you're here."

So far, the Alaighs' office is the only one in Connecticut that offers Healium, but Marcus said the service is expected to expand to other offices in the state soon.

Meanwhile, other doctors in the region had mixed feelings about offering TV services in the waiting room. Dr. Stephen Urchuoli, who practices internal medicine in Trumbull, said he has no television in his waiting room, but has considered adding something.

Many doctors' offices have a TV in the waiting room, he said, including one of the physicians he sees. "It's something people have come to expect," Urchuoli said. "Anything that helps pass the time is helpful."

If he did get a service, he said, he'd probably want something like Healium that offered a mix of programming. "I think one of the problems [of having a waiting room TV service] is that you need to have content that appeals to everyone."

But not all in the region seemed interested in Healium. Carol Miklos, office manager at Merritt Orthopaedic Associates in Bridgeport, said that practice's waiting room has no television, and she didn't see them adding one in the near future.

Miklos said no one has requested TV in the waiting room, and it doesn't really fit into the waiting room environment. "It's one more thing to worry about," she said. "We like to keep things simple."

Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine in Trumbull does have a television, but doesn't subscribe to a particular service. Instead, the channel is always turned to CNN, said office manager Kelly Poulin.

Poulin said there's been talk of adding a service that would offer in-house advertisements, but doesn't think there would be any interest in Healium. CNN provides patients with the news they need, and keeps them occupied, she said.

"It fills up the time," Poulin said.