Enhancing understanding of medical devices with animation

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Across the healthcare industry, medical devices are paving the way for extraordinary advancements.

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These pioneering tools are helping healthcare professionals to provide more critical services, and complete their jobs with more efficiency and precision than ever before. 

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However, these technologies are constantly evolving. While that’s absolutely invaluable for both patients and professionals alike, it does make it tricky to keep on top of the latest advancements! 

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With these videos, you can create a succinct, informative and accurate guide, which gives healthcare teams everything they need to know about a device - all wrapped up in a handy video aid! 

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Keep reading to find out more about how medical device animation is opening up new possibilities for the industry.

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How has animation revolutionised the understanding of medical devices?

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Over the last few years, medical device animation services have unlocked a huge range of possibilities, for multiple different audiences. 

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Across numerous industries - where the nature of the product or service provided is more complex - animation is enabling businesses to dramatically improve the way that they communicate with key audiences. 

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By incorporating animated content in their communication strategies, these businesses can deliver key messages with more clarity and precision, and use the combination of audio and visual to markedly improve both retention and understanding. 

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Here are just some of the ways animation is changing communication in the medical device industry: 

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• Simplifying complex concepts - animation combines bespoke visuals with a carefully crafted audio script. Through these precise, tailored elements, even the most complex concepts can be communicated clearly.
• Enhancing educational materials - not only do animated videos foster greater understanding, but they also increase topic retention. Furthermore, these guides can be rewatched by your audiences again and again.
• Improving patient understanding - these videos can also be tailored to support patients, too. Businesses can create medical device animations that educate patients about the devices, how they are used, and how they make the procedures safer and more accurate. This is a great way to keep patients both informed and at ease.  
• Promoting innovation and design - across the industry more broadly, animated content helps to present the medical sector as pioneering and forward-thinking. This bold, modern and highly designed content shows audiences that the medical industry is constantly innovating, and not one to rest on its laurels! 
• Improving communication - animated videos dramatically strengthen communication strategies. With these videos, businesses can ensure that their key messages are communicated clearly, accurately, memorably, and in a way that is easy for all audiences to follow. 

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In the medical device industry, animation is revolutionising the way that audiences understand medical devices, how they work, what they do and more. In a world where devices are being created and upgraded every single day, this clear and informative content has never been more impactful. 

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Who benefits from animation across medical devices?

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The medical device industry stands to gain huge benefit from using animation services for these products. 

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Beyond the manufacturers of the devices, the animation’s audiences also greatly benefit from being able to access this content. 

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The audiences that benefit from medical device animation include: 

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• Healthcare professionals - being able to access informative medical device guides or tutorials on-demand. 
• Medical device manufacturers - ensuring their products are displayed to their full advantage, and that the devices are being used correctly, while minimising any confusion or frustration from customers. 
• Patients - being kept at ease, with guides about the procedure they will be having, and the devices that will be involved. With a greater understanding of what the devices are, how they work, and how they make the procedure extremely safe, patients can be supported far more effectively. 
• Medical educators and students - educators can ensure their lessons are memorable and easy to follow, and students can access an engaging and informative learning aid, which they can rewatch again and again. 
• Research and development teams - having access to a more effective way of communicating their product, its use cases, and its advancements.  
• Regulatory bodies - being able to confirm with clarity that all of the medical educational requirements (or patient information requirements, depending on the video) are being met in full. 
• Healthcare marketers - gaining a new, more effective way to reach audiences, and ensuring that their messages are being heard and understood. 

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What are the key components of effective medical device animations?

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So, we know the advantages to be gained by using effective medical device animations. But, what exactly is it that makes a medical device animation effective? 

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After all, these aren’t B2C adverts - advertising colourful sweets in space, with pop music and a fleet of entertaining characters. Medical animations need to retain their formal, informative and professional stance. But, that’s not to say that they can’t still be engaging. 

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Engagement is still the cornerstone of these animations (just as they are with your favourite animated adverts). However, their effective engagement is driven by a different series of components. 

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The 6 key components for creating an effective medical device animation are: 

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1. Accuracy and detail - Ensuring the animation goes into sufficient detail, and that the information provided is scientifically correct. However, at the same time, avoid going into any excessive detail - the best animations are succinct, to the point, and stay on-topic! 
2. Clarity and simplicity - While maintaining accuracy and including all the necessary details, the animation should serve to simplify the concept. This means devising a clear-cut script, which carefully articulates all the points required. Then, the visual elements can be used to support the message of the script and further aid understanding, by illustrating the concept in context. 
3. Engaging - Regardless of whether it’s an advert or an explainer video, an animation needs to be engaging. A high quality animation is key to holding the audience's attention, and ensuring your message stays in their mind. The engagement of animations can be increased by using a creative illustration style, using an unusual animation style, or devising a relatable and entertaining character, to just name a few techniques. 
4. Narrative flow - By conducting professional pre-production and storyboarding processes, you can engineer your animated elements with a very strong idea of what the end result will look and feel like (thereby avoiding a jumbled or confusing mash of different elements!). Then once the script is written, you need to take it through a vigorous process of editing. The combination of these two techniques will ensure you achieve a clear and concise narrative flow.
5. Targeted content - Carefully considering your target audience, and ensuring the content is a best-fit for them. This means writing a script that your intended audience would understand and going into the level of detail that they require, while also designing characters and settings that they would be familiar with, and match the context in which they would use / see the medical device.
6. Voiceover and text - Using the audio and textual elements to give the visual meaning, and support your work to simplify the concept. In addition to the effort invested in designing characters, settings and other artwork, animators need to spend just as much time refining the video’s text and voiceover. This way, you can ensure your animation has a sleek, harmonious and professional feel, and that your message is perfectly easy to understand. 

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When all of these elements work together in harmony, you can knock it out of the park, with a medical animation that is as engaging as it is informative. 

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How is animation influencing the development and innovation of medical devices?

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However, the audiences that stand to benefit from medical device animation don’t end there. 

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In fact, one of the other most common use cases for these animations is supporting the actual manufacture of medical devices. 

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When it comes to the development and innovation of medical devices, the unique qualities of animation can be utilised to help businesses to better make and market these technologies. 

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Animation is supporting the manufacture of medical devices being manufactured in key areas such as:

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• Conceptualisation and design - animations are a fantastic tool for companies creating products for the healthcare sector. With these animations, a complex medical topic can be communicated to non-healthcare professionals clearly and precisely. For the medical device industry, this will most notably include topics that are relevant to the specific product or mechanism, which are therefore critical for product development teams to fully understand. By creating healthcare animations for their teams, medical device manufacturing companies can ensure their products are precisely engineered to achieve the best possible results for their consumers.   
• Prototyping and testing - through animation, complex concepts can be displayed in a way that makes them far easier to visualise and understand. And, this doesn’t stop at healthcare. Mechanical animations are an extremely effective way to depict the inner workings of products or mechanisms, to illustrate how a product development has created new benefits, or to show how a device can be used in a real-life healthcare context. With the addition of bespoke animations, the prototyping and testing stages can be undertaken with far more accuracy, and cross-team collaboration can be fostered. 
• Stakeholder engagement - these videos can be shared amongst a wide range of audiences, including those without any prior mechanical or medical experience. As a result, these animations are a powerful addition to stakeholder engagement meetings. Not only do they ensure that stakeholders fully understand how the device works and the benefits that it offers, but they also enable them to make informed and useful feedback. 
• Surgical planning and simulation - one of the unique advantages of animation is that it allows creators to illustrate things that would otherwise not be possible to depict. In a medical context, this means animations can be used to create simulations of surgeries, and the body’s inner workings. This allows you to make explainer videos that demonstrate how the device works in context, with an unparalleled degree of accuracy.   

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What future trends can we anticipate in the use of animation within the medical device sector?

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As you can see, medical device animation is a tool that offers huge benefits for the industry (both manufacturers and customers alike!). 

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As a result, it’s a trend that’s only set to grow. 

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So, the big question on everyone’s minds? How will we see animation evolve, to be used in the medical device industry in more sophisticated, advanced and beneficial ways? 

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3 of the key trends that we anticipate for medical device animations are: 

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1. Virtual and augmented reality integration - VR and AR technologies are developing at a rapid rate, and their capabilities are growing every single day. So, in the very near future, these technologies will be used to provide immersive experiences for medical training and education. For example, these animations can be used to enable medical students to practise using a medical device in virtual reality. This allows them to test how it works, and even try implementing it in their healthcare practices, in a completely safe, risk-free way.  

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2. Increased interactivity - As animation capabilities develop, future medical device animations will be able to feature more interactive elements. By incorporating these elements, viewers will be able to actually play a role in the animation, and get involved in the content themselves. For example, this could include allowing users to explore different aspects of a device's function, simulate device adjustments, explore the intricacies of a device, and many more.

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3. 3D printing collaboration - 3D printing is another technology that is rapidly becoming more sophisticated. As a result, it’s set to play a critical role in the design and prototyping processes of new devices. With mechanical animations, product teams can more effectively visualise how devices can be tailored for individual patients or specific conditions. As a result, these animations can be used in conjunction with 3D printing, with both tools playing a crucial role in the device design process. This will maximise the likelihood of product success before physical prototypes are printed (thereby minimising the number of changes required at this later, more costly stage). 

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No doubt, it’s an exciting time to be animating. 

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Although many people still think animations are best suited to fun-filled adverts, this is a visual medium that shouldn’t be underestimated. 

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Animations are an extremely powerful tool, which can dramatically improve the communication, collaboration and product development capabilities of medical device companies. 

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Whether it’s setting patients at ease, or helping stakeholders to understand how your latest product evolution will aid healthcare professionals, animation is changing the game for the medical device industry. 

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Why work with an animation agency like OK Social?

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OK Social is a medical device animation studio, trusted by countless businesses across the UK. 

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Our talented team has years of experience working with animation, and consists of specialists in illustration, animation, scriptwriting, audio effects, and many more. 

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Across our customer base, we have established a firm reputation for the premium quality of our content, and our ability to combine precise, crisp scriptwriting, with bold and engaging visuals. 

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It’s for these reasons that we’re the trusted animation studio of some of the world’s biggest brands. These include Coca-Cola, the NHS, Lloyds Pharmacy, and Ford, just to name a few. 

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To find out how we can support your business’ communication strategy, speak to the OK Social team today.