At a health system, the same screen might be seen by a patient waiting in the Emergency Department, a researcher between meetings, and a night-shift nurse who hasn’t received a message meant for her in hours. Effective communication in that environment isn’t just about what’s on the screen—it’s about understanding who’s standing in front of it, and what they need in that moment.

That’s the standard Pat Herford holds his digital signage network to. And it’s why Herford, Manager of Organizational Communications at Cedars-Sinai, is the latest recipient of the Poppulo Impact Award.

A Different Question

Most organizational communications start with content—what needs to go out, and where. Pat starts with the audience.

“The shift for me was moving from ‘what do we need to tell people?’ to ‘what do people need to feel right now?’” Pat says. “Once I think about it that way, my approach to the whole system changes.”

That philosophy shows up in the details. Staff-facing screens periodically surface thank-you messages—intentional acknowledgments timed for the people working hours when most communications have gone quiet. In the Emergency Department (ED), heavy process and policy content is deliberately alternated with lighter sequences, so the content loop itself doesn’t add to the weight of a room that’s already carrying plenty.

One Network, Many Audiences

Cedars-Sinai’s network runs 145 screens across two hospital campuses, administrative offices, and an outpatient network—six channels serving audiences with fundamentally different contexts. Consumer-facing screens in lobbies and waiting areas reach patients and visitors in moments of uncertainty. Staff-facing screens reach employees who are unlikely to be at a desk. Physician-facing content operates on its own register entirely.

Managing that complexity without fragmenting the network—or multiplying the workload—required a deliberate architecture.

Built to Target, Built to Scale

After migrating the program to the Poppulo Digital Signage Cloud, Pat rebuilt the system from the ground up.

The architecture operates in three layers: six channels that separate audiences at the device level, twelve playlists that stack time-based content on top, and nine metadata tags that route individual pieces to exactly the right screens when needed. Within those playlists, content is organized into thematic chapters—grouping related slides into purposeful sequences rather than rotating them at random. ED content stays purpose-built, never diluted by an unrelated awareness campaign. A night-shift employee gets content relevant to her shift, not messaging built for the day team. One upload hits the right screens automatically.

The architecture is the means, not the story.

In practice, that means patients in the ED see content structured to reduce uncertainty and set expectations rather than compound them. Employees get operational updates and recognition targeted to the right teams at the right time, without adding to inbox fatigue.

“I enjoy the how,” Pat says. “But really, the why is what it’s about. Once you build the system correctly, you can focus on telling the right stories to the right people.”

What’s Next

The most concrete expression of that philosophy is currently underway in the Emergency Department—a structured initiative to transform those screens from passive information displays into a chapter-based system designed to reduce patient anxiety and free clinical staff from fielding the same questions during the highest-stress moments of their shifts.

Digital signage at Cedars-Sinai is no longer an afterthought. It’s a system built around people—and it shows.

Congratulations to Pat Herford on this well-deserved recognition.

About the Poppulo Impact Awards

The Poppulo Impact Awards recognize leaders who use Poppulo to drive meaningful outcomes through strategy, execution, and innovation across employee and customer communications. Learn more about the Poppulo Impact Awards here.