Why the Digital Waiting Room Is Health Care's Most Valuable Untapped Asset

Point-of-care media, often in the waiting room, has become a central to pharma’s media strategy, and for good reason. Patients spend up to 45 minutes there before a visit begins, which means pharma marketers have heavily invested in static posters, looping video reels, and print materials for years.¹

But, the fact is, so little of it is targeted. A poster in a cardiology office can carry an A-Fib message that is relevant to only a percentage of the audience in the waiting room. The content shown on fixed video loops may only contain one segment of relevant content to that patient.

The doctors and their patients know their diagnosis, but the media buyer doesn’t know which patients they are reaching and if their message is relevant to those individuals. More importantly, just reaching a patient while they are in the physical waiting room is missing the opportunity to engage that patient in all of the virtual follow-ups, check-ins and medication management interactions they have with their providers online.

That’s why I’d like to argue that pharma marketers’ attention is too focused on the physical waiting room. Instead, the most untapped, yet most targeted waiting room sits in virtual care.

As virtual care becomes a permanent fixture of the patient journey for prescription refills, chronic condition check–ins, medication adherence and more, the pre- and post- visit window, the minutes before or after a telehealth appointment, has emerged as an even more valuable and more targeted moment. New research on patient and marketer behavior around virtual care, detailed in Virtual Care in America: The Populus Report, makes the pharma marketing opportunity clear.²

Patients Are Already Paying Attention

Unlike most media environments, the pre-visit window doesn't require marketers to compete for eyeballs. Patients bring the focus and desire for education with them.

According to the report, 51% of patients say they actively stare at the screen before and during a virtual appointment, lending a level of attention most advertising channels can only dream of.² That focus isn't passive scrolling or half-watching in the background. It's a patient sitting down, full attention on their device, waiting for a clinician to join, with nowhere else to look and nothing else competing for attention.

More telling is what patients want to see during their waiting time: 46% say they want health or educational content while they wait.² This is a stated preference from patients, which is stronger than behavioral inference drawn from click data or a media mix model. Patients are, in effect, raising their hands and asking to be informed about their condition, their upcoming visit, their treatment options in the very moments before they meet with a clinician.

High attention paired with an explicit request for education is a rare combination in any advertising context. In pharmaceutical and health marketing specifically, the researchers behind the report describe it as nearly unprecedented.

The finding lands at a moment when point-of-care advertising is already accelerating. In-office ad revenue topping $1 billion signals that health systems, providers, and media buyers increasingly view clinical waiting spaces as legitimate, brandable inventory.³ Programmatic buying has extended that same logic to physical waiting-room screens, allowing advertisers to target and optimize placements in real time rather than negotiate one-off sponsorships.

Virtual care represents the next iteration of that shift, and arguably a more valuable one. Physical waiting rooms are shared, often loud and easily ignored. The virtual pre-visit window is solitary, quiet and, per the data, unusually focused.

The data point to three shifts marketers should make.

First, build content for the specific visit type. A generic message wastes an audience that already asked for education. Marketers should develop condition-specific messaging tied to the appointment happening moments later.

Second, respond to patients’ requests for more information after the ad runs. Virtual visits allow a marketer to trace a message from the pre-visit screen through the clinical conversation and gives the marketer the opportunity to opt-in a patient to receive more product information.

Third, script content that complements the clinician's conversation. Virtual pre-visit content can prime a patient to have a targeted conversation directly with their HCP. Marketers who write with the clinical visit in mind, coordinating messaging with what the clinician is likely to cover, will see stronger recall and stronger follow-through.

Marketers Believe Patients, But Aren’t Yet Equipped for this Phenomenon

The research suggests marketers already sense this shift, even if their media strategies haven't fully caught up.

Sixty-six percent of marketers now rank engagement as their leading measure of virtual-care effectiveness, ahead of new patient starts, script lift and reach.² That marks a meaningful departure from the metrics that have long defined pharmaceutical marketing success, where volume-based measures such as prescriptions written or patients acquired have traditionally dominated.

Additionally, 70% of marketers surveyed said virtual care is effective specifically for patient education, not just brand awareness or reach, but what the report characterizes as genuine learning.²

Those two figures point to a disconnect between belief and execution. Marketers already accept that virtual care works for education, and they're prioritizing engagement over legacy metrics in how they judge success. What's missing is content and experience design that actually earns that engagement, built around what patients say they want rather than repurposed banner creative dropped into a new environment.

This mirrors a broader measurement problem identified in the data. Patients, providers and marketers each describe the value of virtual care using different vocabularies: patients measure it through experience, citing safety and comfort; providers measure it through behavior, pointing to better follow-up, and marketers measure it through commerce, citing return on investment. Without a shared standard, the industry risks underselling a channel that, by its own numbers, already works.

The pre- and post- visit moments offer a clear opportunity to leverage patient attention by filling those touchpoints with useful information, in a measurable, attributable placement that speaks directly to what marketers already say matters most.

What "Designed for the Moment" Looks Like

Capitalizing on these windows is about designing differently for the media that already exists. That means a few clear shifts, including:

• Relevance over reach: Content should be matched to the visit type or condition, rather than rely on generic brand messaging meant to apply broadly across audiences.
• Timing built around the wait: Formats need to be short and digestible, suited to the few minutes patients actually spend looking at the screen before a clinician joins.
• Metrics that match the moment: Success should be measured through comprehension, engagement, and impressions, which are the outcomes marketers already say they value most.

This represents the next evolution of point-of-care media. Static signage in a physical waiting room reaches a broad audience with a single message. Virtual care delivers something different: a personalized, data-informed moment built around one patient.

It’s important to note that virtual care doesn't replace physical point-of-care media. The two channels work together, extending a brand's presence across the full patient journey. But virtual care also stands on its own. Physical point-of-care media reaches everyone in the room, whether or not they're the right audience for the message. Virtual care reaches one patient, in one visit, tied to one condition. There is no wasted impression.

That precision extends to engagement. A poster competes with a phone, a magazine, or a conversation with another patient in the room. A virtual pre-visit screen has one viewer and one moment of attention. The engagement is one-to-one, not one-to-many.

The timing lines up with wider shifts already underway in the sector. As virtual care expands into specialty medicine, chronic disease management and prescription refills, the virtual care moments become a recurring touchpoint rather than a one-time interaction. Patients managing ongoing conditions may pass through that same digital waiting room repeatedly, which raises the stakes for getting the experience right and increases the potential return for brands that do.

There's also a trust dimension. Eighty-eight percent of patients feel safe using virtual care and 86% say they're comfortable discussing sensitive topics during a virtual visit, satisfaction levels that outpace how confident providers themselves feel about virtual diagnoses.² That trust is an asset the industry needs to protect. Content delivered that is transparent, clinically grounded, and genuinely useful reinforces that trust.

What Is the Bottom Line?

As virtual care continues to scale, the precision targeting it allows for is unmatched in point of care media. The pre- and post- visit windows become one of the most efficient places in the entire patient journey to deliver real value to patients.

Patients have already shown they're hungry for education about their specific condition and their treatment options. That demand creates a rare opening for marketers willing to meet it directly rather than treating the moment as an afterthought. What marketers should be asking now is whether their current virtual care spending is well-balanced with in-person point of care spending to create the highest ROI possible.

References

1. Gifford M. Why does it take so long to see a doctor? PartnerMD. Updated March 12, 2026. Accessed August 26, 2026. https://www.partnermd.com/blog/why-do-you-wait-so-long-at-doctors-offices
2. Virtual care in America: the Populus report. Populus Health Technologies. Accessed August 26, 2026. https://populushealthtech.com/the-populus-report/
3. Point-of-care revenue surpassed $1 billion in 2024 — what's driving the surge? Point of Care Marketing Association. Accessed August 26, 2026. https://pocmarketing.org/resources-insights/point-of-care-revenue-surpassed-1-billion-in-2024-whats-driving-the-surge