Healthcare Education: Animated Medical Training Video Production

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While there’s less risk of anyone nodding off mid-session as there is in a company health and safety presentation, the need to engage your audience is still as critical as ever.  

In this context, your audience is already interested in the topic, and keen to learn. Great, tick tick. However, the way that you approach these training sessions can make a profound difference in terms of their memorability, how readily the students can apply their learnings, and how easy the content is to understand. 

These are the areas where animated videos are perfectly poised to deliver huge advantages. 

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Why choose animated medical training videos?

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You’d be forgiven for, initially, assuming that healthcare and animated content existed in two completely different spheres. But, they can both be used together extremely advantageously. 

Animated medical training videos are a concept that is rapidly rising in popularity. In short, these are training videos that feature an animated video style. The training videos can encompass a huge variety of different topics, and be used for both the training of internal teams, and the education of patients and site visitors. 

Animation is ideally suited to medical training videos, for a number of key reasons. The benefits that it unlocks include enhancing engagement, increasing memorability, simplifying explanations, and portraying complex medical topics more clearly, whilst maintaining a professional and formal visual style. 

What’s more, compared to live-action videos, animated videos offer infinitely more creative free reign. In the context of training video production, this means that the medical videos can display the content in a range of different settings, illustrate otherwise inaccessible elements, and switch between an unlimited number of rooms or scenes. This clarity and precision of communication make animated videos an invaluable tool in healthcare education. 

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Key benefits of animated videos in healthcare education

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Animated videos unlock a wide range of impressive benefits, which make this content style an extremely effective way to enhance healthcare education.  

The benefits of opting for animation include:

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• Consistent messaging - when you work with a professional motion graphic studio, you can create bespoke animated videos, which seamlessly align with your company’s existing branding (including everything from colour palettes to tone of voice). This is a great way to keep your content consistent, and create a single harmonious, easy-to-follow style. 
• Cost-effective training - firstly, animated videos are more affordable to produce than live-action videos, so present a more cost-effective option, with a faster production timeline. Secondly, by using video-based content, you can use the same single resource for different training sessions, over and over again. As a result, their ‘cost per use’ will keep dropping over time. 
• Engaging training materials - animation is renowned for its exceptionally high levels of engagement. With its bold colours, captivating visual elements, and pleasing, sleek style, these videos are precisely engineered to capture the audience’s attention, and then hold it right the way through to its conclusion. This makes animated videos a fantastic way to keep your students engaged and excited about the content. 
• Keeping content memorable - similarly to its engaging qualities, the elements of an animation also make the content inherently memorable. The use of characters, visual aids, colours, settings and events all help to strike a chord with the viewer, and spark their memory later on, when they are trying to recall what they’ve learned. 
• Accessible learning materials - a professional animation specialist will help you to ensure that your content is completely accessible, for viewers of any disability. 
• Delivering up-to-date learnings - by adding animated videos to your training, you can ensure your programme feels modern and innovative, while reflecting your organisation’s pioneering approach. It sends the right message to your students, both about the reputation your organisation is upholding, and the dynamic, progressive and exciting nature of the healthcare field at large. 
• Enhanced comprehension - thanks to the combination of all the benefits outlined above, animated videos can deliver outstanding improvements in students’ comprehension. These videos deliver complex topics in a clear, digestible and interesting way. Then after the lesson, your students can rewatch the video as many times as they need, to fully grasp the concept. 

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Creating effective medical training scripts

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In any video, the visuals can only take you so far. The script is the other (equally important, no question) foundation for an engaging and impactful animated video. 

Creating a perfect script for your animation involves a lot of core elements, working together in harmony. 

The components of a well-crafted script include: 

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• A storyline and clear structure 
• Engaging and realistic dialogue 
• Pacing
• Clear messaging  
• Accuracy
• Audience engagement techniques 
• Visual descriptions 

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To find out more about the process that goes into crafting a successful video script, have a read through our dedicated blog, outlining how to write a script for an explainer video.

In the specific context of medical training videos, scripts are crucial, as they lay the foundations for your video. They come in one of the earliest stages of the pre-production process, and essentially give the project its bones. The script keeps your content well-structured, accurate and precise in its delivery of the key messages, concise and easy to follow, while maximising the video’s engagement and impact. 

Plus, when it comes to medical animations, the topics being covered are significantly more complex than your typical explainer video. So, a precise script - which supports all of the visual elements, while ensuring complete accuracy, and meeting the necessary level of detail - is more important than ever. 

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Visual storytelling in medical animation

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One of the greatest advantages of animation is its ability to illustrate anything that the creator requires. 

This could be anything from an illustration of the deepest depths of the sea, to a journey through the internet.  

For healthcare professionals, this allows them to create educational assets with clear, easy to follow and extremely informative visual storytelling. 

The common healthcare education topics that can be portrayed through animated visuals can include: 

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• Specific clinical procedures - such as surgical techniques, how to use key instruments, guidance for patient care or support, and procedures for pre or post-operative care. Or, this could also include best practices for hygiene, sterilisation and PPE. 
• Disease and conditions - including symptom recognition, treatment methods, and best practices for patient education. 
• Pharmacology - including how the drug(s) work in the body, what the drug can be used for, the required drug dosage or administration, and any potential side effects. 
• Medical device usage - covering safe and effective use of key devices, including how they work, their calibration, setup and maintenance. 
• Diagnostic skills - for example, the process of diagnosing different conditions, and reading the images produced by scans or X-rays. 
• Emergency responses - such as the administration of emergency medication, emergency responses for your site, and managing complex A&E scenarios. 
• Medical legislation - including consent, confidentiality and the legalities covering healthcare. 
• Soft skills - such as communicating with patients, bedside manner, managing stressful or upsetting scenarios, delivering bad news, understanding different cultures, personal organisation and administration, and collaborating with other team members. 
• And many more.

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By utilising visual storytelling in these ways, medical animations can put these complex topics in a real-life context, thereby making them far easier to understand, and giving students a far deeper level of knowledge. 

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Designing engaging characters and scenes

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The scenes and characters are two of the core, make-or-break elements of successful video engagement. 

These are the elements that immerse the viewers in the video, with relatable characters and intriguing settings helping you to keep their attention fixed on the video until its conclusion. 

These components are key to creating an impactful and informative healthcare video, as they increase retention rates, evoke an emotional response from the viewers, enhance your audience’s interest in the content, and make the experience of watching the video more fun, interesting and enjoyable. 

Animation techniques for creating relatable characters and immersive settings include: 

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• Ensuring your character and setting reflect your brand identity 
• Tailoring your character and setting to best engage your target market 
• Tailoring your character and setting to match your brand’s tone of voice. For example, the characters in the videos of a professional healthcare company need to be calm and trustworthy. 
• Using colour theory to help achieve the desired emotional response from your audience. For example, incorporating blues into the setting can help instil a sense of calmness. 
• Incorporate diversity into your character design, ensuring different cultures, ages and genders are represented.
• ‘Show rather than tell’ - give your characters expressive faces, and use poses, body language and facial expressions to show the audience what they are feeling (rather than the character having to say it outright)  
• Keep a keen eye for detail, in the design of both your characters and settings. These little details enhance the visual interest of your video, and make the world that you are displaying feel more believable. 
• Ensure that the video’s visuals remain consistent throughout. Otherwise, you will lose that sleek, professional feel. 

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Voiceovers and sound design in medical training videos

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Working alongside scripts, characters and settings, voiceovers and sound design are the final pieces of the puzzle. 

Although designed and added later on in the training video production process, sound and voiceovers play a critical role. They have a huge impact on the overall delivery, engagement, believability and general effectiveness of the video. 

The importance of ensuring voiceovers and sound include: 

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• Supporting the visual elements with more in-depth educational explanations, thereby playing a crucial role in the audience’s learning
• Ensuring the video is realistic 
• Making the video relatable to the working environment 
• Ensuring the video is clear and easy to follow
• Further fostering emotional engagement from your audience 
• Directing the attention of the viewer, and helping them to follow your intended steps 
• Improving the accessibility of the video, while also supporting different learning styles 
• Fostering high engagement levels 
• Maximising the content’s memorability, and your audience’s retention of the information that you have presented.

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Conclusion

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By harnessing the unique advantages of animated training video production, you can equip your students with clear, precise, engaging and memorable educational assets. 

Not only do animated healthcare videos deliver these complex topics with ease and accuracy, but they are cost-effective, accessible, and help to reinforce your brand identity as a modern, pioneering organisation. 

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Why work with an animation agency like OK Social?

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At OK Social, we are a professional motion design studio, with extensive experience working across a huge range of industries. 

We have supported clients spanning the sectors of healthcare, food and drink, education, sports, technology and many more. 

Working closely with our talented team, they have received modern and impactful content, which is precisely geared to reach their target audience, and remains firmly on-brand. 

So, if you would like to find out more about the power of animation, and how it can be used to support your communication strategies, the OK Social team are on hand to help.