Digital displays in health care: benefits for patients and staff

Hospitals all around the world are integrating digital displays to create a more seamless, efficient and reassuring environment for everyone. A digital signage provider sets out some key patient and staff benefits of going digital with displays in healthcare settings.

Walking into a busy medical facility can be overwhelming. Whether it’s a GP waiting room, an ED or a specialist’s office, long queues, confusing layouts and unclear communication can add stress to an already challenging experience. And it’s not just patients who are affected; as any healthcare professional knows, poor patient experiences can lead to operational inefficiencies and a greater burden on staff.

Patient benefits

In waiting spaces

Waiting in healthcare settings can be stressful and anxiety-inducing. Patients often feel frustrated by delays, particularly in EDs or specialist clinics, where wait times can be unpredictable. Digital signage helps mitigate this stress by serving as an effective distraction. Displays showing calming visuals, real-time queue updates, wellness content and entertainment can significantly enhance patient experience.

While healthcare facilities may not be able to control unforeseen delays or busy periods, digital signage can effectively improve the patient waiting experience. Research shows that integrating scenes of nature can reduce the perception of pain¹ and reduce feelings of stress². By incorporating videos and sounds of nature onto digital signage, healthcare settings can ensure they are creating a more peaceful and enjoyable waiting experience for patients.

In addition to entertainment and relaxation, digital signage can be used to display mental health tips, preventive care information and hospital policies, ensuring patients are engaged with valuable content while they wait. This helps create a more informative and reassuring environment before they even meet their healthcare provider.

In wayfinding

Navigating large hospitals or medical centres can be overwhelming for patients and visitors. Confusing layouts, a lack of clear signage and multiple departments can make wayfinding a significant challenge. Digital signage provides an effective solution by offering detailed wayfinding maps, directional signage and real-time updates on clinic locations and appointment schedules.

Internationally, facilities such as Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have successfully begun using this technology.³ In its use at BWH, the ability to provide up-to-date, easily accessible information on digital displays was found to reduce missed or late appointments due to navigational issues and to improve the patient experience overall.

Wayfinding signage can be particularly beneficial for ageing patients and those with dementia by externalising spatial knowledge, decision-making and spatial planning, which can compensate for declining cognitive abilities.⁴ Digital signage, with its ability to be easily customised, streamlines this process of providing accessible information to patients with a variety of needs.

For retention of critical health information

When most patients picture doctors’ offices and hospitals, they likely think of walls adorned with posters and pamphlets containing important health information. If asked to recall what this information was about, however, there would be difficulty; the ‘picture superiority effect’⁵ suggests that people recall only 10% of the information they read but 65% of the visual content they see.

In one study, participants who were shown 500 words were able to recall 88% of the information, while participants who were shown images were able to recall 97% of what they saw.⁶ These findings suggest that digital signage, with its ability to seamlessly incorporate pictures and videos, would be a more effective communication method than traditional print options.

Clear communication of medical information is important for many reasons, from early diagnosis to encouraging healthy lifestyle habits or informing patients about their treatment options. While posters and pamphlets often fail to catch the eye, digital signage can be customised, personalised and adapted to capture patients’ attention.

In particular, research shows that animation helps to guide viewers’ attention, ensuring they focus on important details or instructions.⁷ This is attributed to animations requiring less cognitive load to understand than other visuals, such as static images. This research shows that by leveraging high-definition animations as part of your messaging, healthcare organisations can ensure that important health guidelines, medication instructions and public health alerts are more effective for patients.

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How this could work in practice:

A pharmacy could use digital signage to educate customers on medication side effects or proper dosages.

A hospital waiting area could display reminders about the importance of flu vaccines during peak seasons.

A general practice could showcase lifestyle tips to prevent chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.

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Unlike static posters, digital screens can be updated instantly, ensuring that information remains relevant and up to date. This is particularly beneficial in emergencies, where real-time alerts and crisis communication can be broadcast instantly across multiple screens.

For time-sensitive messages

One of the biggest advantages of digital signage is its flexibility. Healthcare organisations can schedule content based on the time of day, patient demographics or facility needs.

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How this could work in practice:

Morning displays could show appointment reminders, medication adherence tips and general health awareness messages.

Afternoon displays could show light-hearted entertainment, wellness programming and service promotions.

Evening displays could show ED updates, overnight service information and staff shift changes for internal staff communication.

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The ability to dynamically update and automate content delivery ensures that patients and staff always receive the right information at the right time. This can significantly improve patient engagement and provide a more seamless experience across different touchpoints within a medical facility.

Staff benefits

For internal communication

Beyond patient-facing benefits, digital signage is an invaluable tool for internal staff communication. Hospitals and medical centres are fast-paced environments where clear, timely communication is critical. Digital displays can be used to relay important updates, staff scheduling changes, emergency alerts and training reminders in real time.

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How this could work in practice:

Staff break rooms could feature rotating content on hospital policies and wellness programs.

Nurses’ stations could display live updates on bed availability and patient flow.

Surgical departments could utilise digital boards to manage operating room schedules efficiently.

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Internal operational inefficiencies can quickly lead to miscommunication, frustration and a lack of engagement among staff — three issues that no business, especially not a healthcare organisation, can afford to have. Digital signage helps bridge this gap by ensuring instantaneous and consistent messaging across teams.

The message

The integration of digital signage in healthcare settings offers tangible benefits for patients, staff and entire organisations. As hospitals and clinics continue to embrace digital transformation, adopting intelligent, data-driven signage solutions will be key to creating more efficient and patient-friendly medical environments. In an industry where clear communication is essential, digital signage is a potential game changer.

*Steven Baxter is CEO and Founder of Mandoe Media.

^{1. Malenbaum S, Keefe FJ, Williams ACC, Ulrich R, Somers TJ. Pain in its environmental context: implications for designing environments to enhance pain control. Pain. 2008;134(3):241–244. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2007.12.002}

^{2. Kjellgren A, Buhrkall H. A comparison of the restorative effect of a natural environment with that of a simulated natural environment. J. Environ. Psychol. 2010;30(4):464–472. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.01.011}

^{3. Center for Connected Medicine. Digital wayfinding becomes popular way to boost patient experience at health systems. UPMC Enterprises. July 14, 2020. Accessed 20 May, 2025. https://enterprises.upmc.com/resources/insights/digital-wayfinding-becomes-popular-way-to-boost-patient-experience-at-health-systems}

^{4. Passini R, Pigot H, Rainville C, Tétreault MH. Wayfinding in a nursing home for advanced dementia of the Alzheimer’s type. Environ. Behav. 2000;32(5): 684–710. doi: 10.1177/00139160021972748}

^{5. Pamplona F. The power of visuals. MedTech Intelligence. February 8, 2023. Accessed 20 May, 2025. https://medtechintelligence.com/column/the-power-of-visuals}

^{6. Shepard RN. Recognition memory for words, sentences, and pictures. J. Verb. Learning Verb. Behav. 1967;6(1):156–163. doi: 10.1016/S0022-5371(67)80067-7}

^{7. Praveen CK, Srinivasan K. Psychological impact and influence of animation on viewer’s visual attention and cognition: a systematic literature review, open challenges, and future research directions. Comput. Math. Methods Med. 2022:1–29. doi: 10.1155/2022/8802542}

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