What is digital signage for healthcare?

Healthcare digital signage means running reception boards, department directories, visiting hours, corridor directions and staff notices on screens instead of printed signs and laminated A4. In ChannelOS each board is a real editable show: every heading, name and time is its own selectable element, and the screen plays it from the browser already built into the display, so correcting a clinic time is an edit rather than a reprint and a walk round the building.

Can a clinic screen show patient names or queue numbers?

No, and it should not. ChannelOS has no connection to any patient administration or appointment system, so a number on a ChannelOS screen would be a number somebody typed, which is exactly the kind of thing that goes stale and gets believed anyway. Our waiting room guidance says the same thing in full: no queue numbers, no patient names, no treatment claims. For calling patients through, buy a queue-management system.

Do we need a media player behind every hospital screen?

No. ChannelOS plays as a web page in the browser the screen already has, which covers Android TV, Google TV, webOS and Fire TV, plus any Chromebox or laptop already driving a display over HDMI. There is also a native Android TV app if you would rather install something, downloaded as an APK from our own site rather than from Google Play. Nothing is sideloaded, nothing is licensed per device, and a screen is paired by opening the player URL on it and scanning the code it shows with a phone.

Can different screens in the same building show different things?

Yes, and that is the normal arrangement. Screens tune into a channel, which is a named feed with its own daily and weekly timeline, so the public corridor runs one channel while the staff room runs another and the pharmacy window runs a third. One account holds all of them and the board shows you what each one is playing right now.

Who in a practice can actually change the screen?

Whoever has the login, from whatever they have on them. The editor has a real phone build rather than a shrunken desktop one, so a practice manager can fix a wrong clinic time on a phone between appointments, and the AI assistant will draft or reword a board if the shape of it is the hard part. The change reaches the screens in seconds because a screen derives what it shows from the schedule in real time, so there is no publish step to forget.

How much does healthcare digital signage cost?

The first screen is free forever and further screens are billed per screen per month, with current rates on the pricing page. Free screens carry a ChannelOS banner that opens into a full ChannelOS slide roughly every two minutes; any paid plan removes both, which for a public-facing clinic corridor is usually the reason to pay. There is no player device to buy and no per-device licence, so the hardware cost is the screens you already have.

Digital signage for healthcare and hospitals

What goes on the screen

Running reception boards, department directories, visiting hours, corridor directions and staff notices on screens in a clinic or hospital, played from the screen's own browser and edited from a phone.

Reception and department boards.

Which clinic is in which room today, who is covering, when the pharmacy window closes. The board is a real editable show, so changing a name is an edit, not a rebuild.
Visiting hours and ward notices.

The notice that changes four times a year and is wrong for three of them. Put it on a channel and it changes everywhere the moment you change it once.
Corridor directions.

Arrows, floor numbers and department names, drawn at a size that reads from the far end of a corridor. Portrait screens are a first-class shape, not a rotated afterthought.
Staff-side boards in back areas.

Hand-hygiene reminders, rota changes, the number for the on-call. A staff corridor screen and a public one can run completely different channels from the same account.

How it is different

Five things that are true here and worth checking elsewhere.

Every one of these is a mechanism rather than a promise, so you can confirm each of them on a free screen before you pay for anything.

01
The screen is live, not polling.

A paired screen holds a connection and derives what it shows from the schedule in real time. Change the board and the screens follow in seconds. There is no publish step, no playlist to re-download and no interval to tune.
02
A channel is a real 24/7 timeline.

Not a playlist. A channel is a named feed with a daily and weekly plan plus date-scoped overrides, so a board can hold Tuesday afternoons, a campaign can own one fortnight, and a screen tuned in follows its own clock all year without anyone touching it.
03
The editor is built for a phone first.

Below a laptop width the whole editor swaps chrome rather than shrinking: a bottom tool bar, a selection bar that navigates as a menu stack, and the deck one tap from the slide counter. Fixing a wrong price from the shop floor is the normal way to use it.
04
AI is at every step, not one button.

Describe the board in a sentence, or hand over the PDF you already print from, and the assistant drafts a real editable show. It stays available to reword, restyle or rebuild a slide by chat, and the same assistant answers product questions in the app.
05
Any screen with a browser can play it.

Android TV, Google TV, webOS, Fire TV, a Chromebox or a laptop in kiosk mode, paired by scanning a code with your phone. There is a native Android TV app too, downloaded as an APK from our own site rather than from Google Play. No media player box, no per-device licence, nothing to sideload.

Nothing to install, in the normal case: open the player URL in the screen's own browser and scan the code with your phone. If you would rather install an app, the native Android TV app is a free download from our own site rather than from Google Play, and a screen running it is on exactly the same plan as a screen running the browser.

When to buy something else

Where ChannelOS is the wrong answer for this.

ChannelOS is not a clinical system and must not be used as one. It does not call patients, it does not show queue positions or names, and it has no integration with a PAS, an EPR or an appointment system, so nothing on a ChannelOS screen can be trusted to reflect who is next. If the screen's job is calling patients through, buy a queue-management product built for that. If the job is a corridor that says what is where and a reception board that is actually current, this is the lighter answer. Anything a ChannelOS screen shows is something a person typed.

Questions

Answered in full, because a half answer costs you a phone call.

What is digital signage for healthcare?: Healthcare digital signage means running reception boards, department directories, visiting hours, corridor directions and staff notices on screens instead of printed signs and laminated A4. In ChannelOS each board is a real editable show: every heading, name and time is its own selectable element, and the screen plays it from the browser already built into the display, so correcting a clinic time is an edit rather than a reprint and a walk round the building.
Can a clinic screen show patient names or queue numbers?: No, and it should not. ChannelOS has no connection to any patient administration or appointment system, so a number on a ChannelOS screen would be a number somebody typed, which is exactly the kind of thing that goes stale and gets believed anyway. Our waiting room guidance says the same thing in full: no queue numbers, no patient names, no treatment claims. For calling patients through, buy a queue-management system.
Do we need a media player behind every hospital screen?: No. ChannelOS plays as a web page in the browser the screen already has, which covers Android TV, Google TV, webOS and Fire TV, plus any Chromebox or laptop already driving a display over HDMI. There is also a native Android TV app if you would rather install something, downloaded as an APK from our own site rather than from Google Play. Nothing is sideloaded, nothing is licensed per device, and a screen is paired by opening the player URL on it and scanning the code it shows with a phone.
Can different screens in the same building show different things?: Yes, and that is the normal arrangement. Screens tune into a channel, which is a named feed with its own daily and weekly timeline, so the public corridor runs one channel while the staff room runs another and the pharmacy window runs a third. One account holds all of them and the board shows you what each one is playing right now.
Who in a practice can actually change the screen?: Whoever has the login, from whatever they have on them. The editor has a real phone build rather than a shrunken desktop one, so a practice manager can fix a wrong clinic time on a phone between appointments, and the AI assistant will draft or reword a board if the shape of it is the hard part. The change reaches the screens in seconds because a screen derives what it shows from the schedule in real time, so there is no publish step to forget.
How much does healthcare digital signage cost?: The first screen is free forever and further screens are billed per screen per month, with current rates on the pricing page. Free screens carry a ChannelOS banner that opens into a full ChannelOS slide roughly every two minutes; any paid plan removes both, which for a public-facing clinic corridor is usually the reason to pay. There is no player device to buy and no per-device licence, so the hardware cost is the screens you already have.

More of these on Answers, which covers cost, hardware and what happens when the wifi drops.

When a box is the right answer

A screen that is already playing keeps playing if the wifi drops, but it needs the connection back to come up again after a power cut, because nothing is cached on the television itself. If a screen has to survive a long outage entirely on its own, buy a player from a company that sells one and ask them about local storage. That is a real reason to pay for hardware. Ours is not one of them.

Digital signage for healthcare, on the screens already in the corridor.

Running reception boards, department directories, visiting hours, corridor directions and staff notices on screens in a clinic or hospital, played from the screen's own browser and edited from a phone.

Reception and department boards.

Visiting hours and ward notices.

Corridor directions.

Staff-side boards in back areas.

Five things that are true here and worth checking elsewhere.

The screen is live, not polling.

A channel is a real 24/7 timeline.

The editor is built for a phone first.

AI is at every step, not one button.

Any screen with a browser can play it.

Where ChannelOS is the wrong answer for this.

Answered in full, because a half answer costs you a phone call.

When a box is the right answer

The rest of the picture.

Waiting room TV

A realistic waiting room rotation

Portrait screens

Why there is no player box

Get one screen live first.