Sector · Pharmacies, chemists, health and beauty

Pharmacy digital signage: the screen answers, you advise

Inform without alarming.

Opening times, where to find the paracetamol, which services you offer: your team answers the same questions fifty times a day. In the window and over the counter, a screen takes that load — and counter time goes back to being advice.

7,000+connected screens
1,000+customer accounts
130+certified partners
20+countries

The experiences involved

Six EMITY experiences, one platform for the whole pharmacy.

01The starting point

A pharmacy spends its day
repeating itself.

The problem is not a lack of information. It is that the information only travels by voice, one person at a time, exactly when the queue is building.

Pharmacist advising a young mother at the counter of a wood-fitted pharmacy, under a screen reading “Hay fever? Let’s talk about it”

Inform without alarming.

What makes a queue tense is not the wait: it is not knowing. The screen answers the questions that keep coming back, and the pharmacist’s time goes to advice.

  • ✓The same question, fifty times a day : opening hours, which pharmacy is open on Sunday, which aisle a product sits in. Answers that cost as much time as a piece of advice, without being one.
  • ✓The A4 sheet taped to the glass : printed in the morning, faded within weeks behind the glass, replaced when somebody remembers. Mostly it signals that the information is provisional.
  • ✓Services nobody knows about : vaccination, testing, medication reviews, equipment hire: the pharmacy offers them, and customers rarely find out before they ask.

02The journey

From the window to the dispensary: six moments worth equipping

Here is a patient’s journey, followed as they live it: they walk past the pharmacy, they come through the door, they look for an aisle, they wait their turn, they reach the counter. At every step the screen answers one precise question — and the last one is no longer for them, but for your team.

Map of a pharmacy showing a patient’s journey in six steps: at the window, in the evening with the shutters down, in the aisles, while waiting, at the counter and in the dispensary

Passers-by in front of a pharmacy window where a screen lists flu jabs, health checks and advice1 · At the windowInformA passer-by looks at a window for three seconds. Opening hours, the services you offer, this season’s vaccinations: the screen says it without their having to come in, and it is corrected in seconds when an hour changes.
Pharmacy window in the evening: the screen says to call NHS 111 tonight2 · After hoursDirectThis is when the information is worth the most. The duty rota, the number to call, the nearest branch: the screen stays readable with the shutter down. Outdoors with no mains supply, digital ink takes over.
Screen at the end of a pharmacy aisle in the health and beauty section3 · In the aislesGuideLooking for an aisle without wanting to ask is the most common situation, and the quietest. A screen at the end of the shelving gives the aisle, and a touch kiosk lets people go through the health and beauty range on their own.
Pharmacy waiting area: the screen shows the number called and a prevention message4 · While waitingFill the waitTwo minutes feel long in front of a busy counter. A displayed queue number takes the uncertainty away, and the screen carries seasonal health messages rather than a yellowing poster.
Screen above the counter during a consultation: “Your inhaler, in 3 simple steps”5 · At the counterGive the time back to adviceThis is where your team adds the most. A screen above the counter carries what gets repeated fifty times a day — hours, services, paperwork — and the time saved goes back into advice.
Screen in a pharmacy dispensary showing the day’s tasks for the team6 · In the dispensaryCo-ordinateThe one screen that is not for patients: the day’s deliveries, internal instructions, the notices you are required to display to staff. It is all prepared in E-MANAGER, across several branches if need be.
Rollout1 → 6screens, one platform

The six screens do not all arrive at once.

Most pharmacies start with the window — the only one that works at night too — then add the counter and the waiting area. The platform is the same from the first screen to the last.

03The EMITY suite

Five uses, one dashboard

The EMITY suite1login per member of staff

A pharmacy does not need five contracts or five training sessions.

Everything is driven from E-MANAGER, with one login per member of staff.

Health and beauty aisle of a pharmacy, under a screen presenting seasonal care

Digital signage

Broadcast to the screens in the pharmacy: build a visual, schedule it around your opening hours, drive one screen or several remotely.

Every screen

Patient at a “Find it” touch kiosk listing the pharmacy’s departments

Interactive display

A touch journey for the health and beauty aisle: customers browse by need or by brand. Included from the Excellence plan upwards.

Health & beauty

Regulatory notices screen at the pharmacy entrance: prices, opening hours, out-of-hours service

Regulatory display

The notices and documents you are required to display, digitised and updated without reprinting.

Counter · window

Patients waiting their turn at the counters; the screen calls ticket A 024 to counter 2

Queue management

Tickets and an on-screen call to smooth the counter at peak hours and during vaccination campaigns.

Counter

Delivery driver signing in on the wall tablet at the stockroom entrance

Visitor register

The arrivals and departures of staff, temporary cover and delivery drivers, kept digitally.

Stockroom

04What changes

Three moments,
three screens, one place to drive them

Passer-by in front of a pharmacy window where a screen gives seasonal advice on avoiding sunburnIn the window, before they come inYour services, seasonal advice and health and beauty offers, visible from the pavement. The frontage keeps working while the door is shut.
Pharmacist advising a couple at the counter, under a screen reading “Store your medicines well”Over the counter, during the adviceThe pharmacist explains, the screen shows: how to take it, how to use the device, which campaign is running. The message stays after the sentence ends.
Patient sitting in the waiting area, facing a screen announcing a blood sugar test with no appointmentIn the waiting area, without the impatienceFive minutes pass faster with something to look at — and that is exactly when somebody discovers a service they did not know you offered.

05Out of hours

A screen that works at night too

What the window says once the shutters are down

That is when a frontage is most useful, and most often silent. A window screen stays readable with the shutters down, scheduled well in advance:

  • ✓Which pharmacy is open tonight, on Sunday and on public holidays — and where it is.
  • ✓Your real opening hours, lunchtime closing and holidays included.
  • ✓The number to call in an emergency.
  • ✓The services available as soon as you reopen.

A whole period is scheduled in one sitting, instead of printing a fresh sheet every week.

Pharmacy window at night, shutters down: the screen says to call NHS 111 this Sunday

Electronic paper1stFrench vendor to support it

Worth knowing

EMITY is the first French vendor to support electronic paper (e-paper). In a pharmacy it suits everything that changes rarely but has to stay readable: shelf-edge prices, tariff notices, aisle plans. No power drawn between updates, readable in direct sunlight, around five years on battery.

06Choosing the hardware

What decides is brightness, ahead of resolution

Placement Brightness to aim for Common size Why
Window in direct sun 2,500 to 5,000 cd/m² 43 to 65 in. A living-room television (300 to 400 cd/m²) turns grey behind glass in daylight.
Shaded window, narrow street 1,500 to 2,500 cd/m² 43 to 55 in. Reflection on the glass matters as much as direct light; an anti-glare treatment is sometimes enough.
Counter, waiting area 350 to 700 cd/m² 43 to 55 in. A commercial panel is built for 12 to 16 hours a day, where a consumer model is rated for 4 to 6.
Shelf labels and tariffs (e-paper) No backlight 13 to 32 in. Readable in full sun, no power draw between updates, mounts without a supply.

These are the orders of magnitude of the commercial display market, not an EMITY price list: EMITY publishes the software and works through a network of certified resellers who quote and install the hardware suited to your frontage. On the software side, E-MANAGER works with screens from every manufacturer — including the ones already in the pharmacy.

07Getting started

From the order to the first thing on screen

Technician connecting an EMITY player to the back of a screen

1

A connection that leaves your dispensing system alone

The screen reaches the internet without sitting inside the network of your dispensing software. Everything is driven from a browser.

Back of a wall screen: the E-BOX player fixed to the mount and connected to the screen

2

The screen, with or without a player

A screen running Android, Tizen (Samsung) or webOS (LG) takes the E-SOFT application directly. Otherwise an E-BOX player sits behind any screen.

Graphic designer composing a poster in the E-MANAGER editor on a large monitor

3

Your first visuals, without a designer

EMITY’s built-in editor composes a poster inside the platform — and if your team already works in them, Canva and Adobe Express connect too.

E-MANAGER interface: playlist with a live preview of the poster and its slides

4

Scheduling, once for the season

Broadcasts aligned to your opening hours, your out-of-hours cover and seasonal campaigns. Every member of staff gets their own login.

08A different need

Looking for signage for pharmaceutical production?

If you arrived here for a manufacturing site rather than a retail pharmacy — production lines, warehouses, quality and safety information on the shop floor — that is a different brief, with different constraints. It is covered on our industry and production plants page. And if you are equipping a hospital or a clinic, start with digital signage in the medical sector.

09The wider picture

An established platform, and a network to fit it

EMITY equips independent pharmacies and groups alike, with the same E-MANAGER. The interface is web-based: it opens from any desk, with nothing to install. Health-sector projects are collected on our healthcare work.

+7,000

screens connected worldwide

+1,000

customer accounts

+130

certified resellers

+20

countries

Estate takeoverReplayrather than replace

Screens already installed and driven by another platform?

They can often be taken over (our Replay scheme) rather than replaced while still in good order. Worth raising with your reseller, or see our offers and our subscriptions.

10Common questions

What pharmacists ask before they fit anything

No. E-MANAGER is driven from a web interface, with no particular technical skill: your team builds a visual in the built-in editor, picks the screens and schedules the broadcast. Day to day, nobody from outside needs to step in. The hardware installation itself is done by your EMITY reseller.

The budget splits in two. The hardware — screen, mount, installation — is quoted by a certified reseller and depends on size, on the brightness the position needs, and on how many screens you are fitting. The software is an E-MANAGER subscription; the plans are set out on our subscriptions. A single window and a pharmacy fitted with window, counter and kiosk are not the same project, so a quote on your own case is the only useful number.

Brightness is the first criterion, ahead of resolution. For a window in direct sun the commercial display market sits between 2,500 and 5,000 cd/m²; in shade or in a narrow street, 1,500 to 2,500 cd/m² is enough. A consumer television peaks around 300 to 400 cd/m² and turns grey behind the glass. Your reseller measures the position on site, because the orientation of the frontage changes the answer.

What goes on the screens — services, seasonal advice, required notices — carries no named patient data. On the technical side, the screen reaches the internet without sitting inside the network of your dispensing software, which avoids opening another door onto health data. For a specific use — calling a customer by ticket number, for instance — we look at the case with you before putting it in place.

Your services first, because they are the least known: vaccination, testing, medication reviews, equipment hire. Then seasonal advice (allergies, sun, winter viruses), prevention campaigns, health and beauty offers, and — with the shutters down — which pharmacy is open and your real hours. Visuals are composed in EMITY’s built-in editor, and in Canva or Adobe Express if your team already works in them.

In most cases, yes. E-MANAGER works with screens from every manufacturer: the E-SOFT application installs directly onto an Android, Tizen (Samsung) or webOS (LG) screen; otherwise an E-BOX player goes behind it. A fleet driven by another platform can often be taken over under our Replay scheme. One caveat: a living-room panel in a sunlit window will stay hard to read whatever the software.

On the software side, a few hours: create the account, compose the first visuals, schedule them around your hours. The real lead time depends on the hardware and the installation, planned with your reseller — drilling, power, mounting in the window. The simplest route is to start the free trial on a screen you already have, then fit the window afterwards.

Yes, and the uses overlap heavily: informing patients, guiding them through the building, managing the queue, displaying required notices. What changes is the emphasis — a practice leans on the waiting room and on how to prepare for an examination, a clinic on guiding people between departments. See screens in the waiting room for that case, or the medical sector more broadly.

11Nearby

Three pages that go further

Screens in the waiting room

The subject seen from the waiting time, practices and clinics included: waiting room.

Regulatory display, digitised

The documents and notices you must display, without reprinting: legal digital signage.

The platform in detail

What E-MANAGER does beyond the pharmacy: the E-MANAGER.

Let’s make it concrete

Try it on a screen you already have

The trial opens the full platform, with every feature included, for 3 months, on one screen, with no card details and no commitment. Enough to build a real broadcast loop and judge it on the evidence.