Medical Animations

In the healthcare sector, effective communication is essential for raising awareness, delivering critical information, and guiding policy decisions. Whether it’s reaching out to the general public, providing crucial details to patients, or explaining complex issues to medical professionals and policymakers, clear and engaging communication can make a significant difference.

Raising Awareness Among the Public

By ensuring content is accessible and engaging, animations can help amplify crucial health messages and foster greater public understanding. Providing information for patients who might be feeling worried and overwhelmed after a recent diagnosis, or ensuring clarity for non-native English speakers and neurodiverse audiences, animation is a great way to make healthcare communications run seamlessly.One powerful example of awareness-raising communication is our collaboration with Breast Cancer UK. Tasked with educating people on ways to reduce their risk of breast cancer at different life stages, we created an animation that unfolds through key milestones, introducing relatable characters to resonate with diverse audiences. The animation was also split into smaller social media clips to maximise reach and engagement.

In another project for Scleroderma Awareness Week, we developed an animation aimed at patients, their families, and the general public. This animation served as a guide offering a concise overview of scleroderma, highlighting key symptoms, and showcasing initiatives that SRUK offer to provide support. Using simple on-screen-messaging and visually engaging content without the need of a voice-over, this animation succinctly raised awareness about this lesser-known condition.

Patient Information

Traditional patient information leaflets often fall short in engaging patients and conveying crucial details. Animated explainer videos are transforming patient education by addressing anxiety, providing essential pre-treatment guidelines, and ensuring patients are well-prepared for procedures.

These videos, accessible via text message or email, combine written word, audio, and graphics for a comprehensive and engaging experience. For instance, an animated explainer video created for King’s College NHS Trust has garnered 78,000 YouTube views, showcasing its effectiveness and lasting impact. This modern approach supplements consultation information and offers a resource patients can revisit as needed, significantly enhancing patient understanding and preparedness.

Explaining Drug Development

Explainer animations can also target policy audiences. The development of pharmaceuticals is a complex and costly process, often misunderstood by the general public and policymakers. An animation can effectively demystify the process, explaining the numerous steps and challenges involved and the investment that is necessary to bring a new drug to market.

For the BioIndustry Association, we created an animation that breaks down the challenges and costs associated with developing pharmaceuticals for rare diseases, which hold a specific set of challenges due to the small number of patients and their often geographically diverse locations. 

Animations serve as valuable tools for raising awareness among policymakers, ensuring they understand the critical need for funding and support in this area.

Targeting Healthcare Professionals

Effective communication is also essential when targeting healthcare professionals. Animations can be a powerful way to introduce new drugs and treatments, providing clear, concise, and engaging information. By highlighting the benefits and mechanisms of new pharmaceuticals, these animations help healthcare professionals stay informed about the latest advancements, ultimately improving patient care.

The Medical Defence Union (MDU) approached us to create an informative animation to highlight the updates to the GMC’s Good Medical Practice guidelines. The guidelines set out the standards of care and behaviour expected of all medical professionals and the animation encapsulated these in an engaging and accessible format. 

Engaging Diverse Audiences

Effective healthcare communication involves reaching diverse audiences with tailored messages. Animated content is a powerful tool for this purpose, offering a way to address a broad spectrum of viewers with varied needs and backgrounds. To resonate with a wide range of demographics, animations can feature characters of varying ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities. Using vibrant primary colours to represent diverse skin tones, and incorporating symbolic elements, can enhance the narrative and make it more relatable. 

For example, we crafted an animation in collaboration with Mental Health Europe that tackled misconceptions, stigma, and discrimination surrounding mental health and aimed to instigate open conversations that fostered the development of mentally healthy communities. The broad target audience, spanning parents, families, children, students, caregivers, educators, employees, employers, influencers, policymakers, and various stakeholders necessitated a creative approach. A ribbon weaves through the animation, leading the viewer through the narrative, and symbolising interconnectedness within communities.

By addressing specific niches and ensuring content is accessible and engaging, animations can help amplify crucial health messages and foster greater public understanding.

Promoting Accessible Healthcare Solutions

In the healthcare industry, animations play a crucial role in raising awareness about new services and initiatives. For instance, the Pharmacy First service by the NHS allows patients to receive healthcare advice and treatment for seven common conditions directly from a pharmacy, eliminating the need for a GP appointment. This service aims to make healthcare more accessible and reduce pressure on GP practices.

Animations designed for such initiatives can feature approachable characters and familiar settings to ensure the message resonates with the public. Clear and concise messaging, suitable for various platforms including social media and video screens in pharmacies, is essential for effective communication. By creating a straightforward narrative that highlights the ease of using services like Pharmacy First, animations can encourage patients to seek advice from their local pharmacy, thereby promoting accessible healthcare solutions.

Animations not only inform but also engage and inspire viewers. Whether you’re raising public awareness about a new healthcare service, explaining the complexities of drug development, or educating healthcare professionals about new treatments, animations are designed to make a lasting impact. By leveraging the power of animation, you can help bridge communication gaps in the healthcare industry, ensuring vital information reaches those who need it most.