University Hospital Brno – Children’s Hospital is one of the key healthcare facilities in the Czech Republic. It provides top-level care to pediatric patients from across Moravia and, due to its scale and expertise, ranks among the most important children’s hospitals in the country.
The hospital complex includes several pavilions and outpatient clinics, which often makes navigation difficult for patients and their companions. Although information boards and staff are available, their capacity is quickly exhausted during the day, and visitors repeatedly turn to nurses or reception desks with questions that can be efficiently automated.
In the Brno Children’s Hospital, a high number of patients and parents move through the facility every day and often struggle to navigate the large hospital complex. As a result, visitors frequently get lost and ask staff for directions, increasing the workload of hospital employees.
Although information is available at central admissions desks, this leads to longer waiting times and reduced check-in efficiency. The hospital therefore needed a solution that enables easy and intuitive navigation, supports natural communication similar to asking staff, and is available 24/7 to assist visitors at any time.
An interactive aReception terminal was installed in the hospital’s main hall, featuring a moving avatar with expressive facial animations, capable of communicating naturally both by voice and in writing. The terminal provides map data with detailed navigation to clinics, pharmacies, and other important locations. It also offers operational information, such as opening hours and parking conditions.
Visitors can communicate using voice and ask, for example: “Where is the surgery department?” or “How do I get to the pharmacy?“. The avatar then responds both by voice and text, displaying a map with the route highlighted.
The terminal offers the option to scan a map via QR code, which the visitor can save to their mobile phone. This provides quick and convenient navigation without needing to use the terminal again.
Scan the QR code with your phone to view a sample navigation map. You can also view the map directly on your computer.
For easier use, the terminal offers buttons for quick selection, such as for navigation or service lookup. This mode is also suitable for visitors with hearing impairments.
Due to the hospital’s requirements, responses are not generated directly by AI but are selected from predefined answers. This ensures 100% control over the output and eliminates the risk of incorrect information.
The terminal supports Czech and English, with Ukrainian under consideration. Language switching occurs automatically based on the visitor’s spoken language.
The terminal required a VESA mount, electrical power supply (230V), and a wired internet connection.
The digital guide Florence answers on average over 600–700 specific visitor questions each month.
If these inquiries were handled by medical staff, it would mean approximately 10–17 extra hours per month—unnecessarily spent time that, thanks to Florence, can instead be devoted to direct patient care.
Florence is thus an effective support for visitor orientation while also saving the hospital time and budget.
The implementation of the aReception solution brought significant benefits to Brno Children’s Hospital:
We decided to implement the aReception solution primarily due to the need to reduce the workload on staff and improve navigation for patients and their companions within our facility. The digital guide Florence has proven to be a reliable assistant in answering frequently asked questions that would otherwise burden nurses or front desk staff.
We greatly appreciate the ease of use and clear user interface, which even older visitors can manage. Thanks to the solution, we now have better insight into the movement of people and can guide patients more effectively to the correct departments. We also value the quick implementation and the supportive approach of the aReception team, who were helpful throughout the entire deployment process.
MUDr. Ivo Rovný, MBA
Director, University Hospital Brno
We’ll be happy to show you how an automated reception can improve efficiency in your facility as well.
