Research by surgeon Prof. Jeekel (Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam) shows that art and music can reduce anxiety and stress, greatly improving patient satisfaction and speed of recovery. Specifically, the data showed that landscapes and classical music are the best choices for patient relaxation. That’s why we asked the help of our creative partners: Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, to help create a very special experience: MRI cinema. We incorporated this innovation to existing Philips MRI scanners, thus creating the Philips Ambient Experience MRI scanner.

At key radiology conferences -RSNA (US), ECR (EU) and Arab Health- radiologists could experience the product in a special booth. We then used geo-targeting to follow up with a social campaign.

When patients lie in the Philips Ambient Experience MRI scanner, they can watch our MRI cinema via a mirror and listen to the audio with a special non-metal headphone. We created a 45-minute video of landscape sketches that are slowly transformed into paintings, accompanied by great classical music. Just like the scanner builds a picture slice by slice, the video shows the build-up of a painting, layer by layer. With the help of two great masters: Rembrandt and Beethoven, a beautiful Dutch masterpiece is created before the patient’s eyes. The orchestra was directed in sync with the development of the paintings.

The design of our experience was quite challenging. We needed to distract the patient in the MRI scanner, yet we should not over-stimulate the patient, otherwise scans would become useless. So we needed to strike exactly the right balance to make the film both effective and ‘MRI proof’.

Considering that an MRI equipment purchase takes 6-9 months (involving up to 1.2 million dollars), this campaign quickly generated impact. Within two months visits of the webpage increased by 85%.

222 Hospitals initiated contact with Philips for the Ambient Experience MRI scanner. That’s 50% more than last year. Our campaign strengthened Philips’ position as the number one health tech company worldwide. The excellent financial results of Philips in 2017 are mainly due to their strong sales of medical imaging equipment.

But the most important result is that patients around the world feel much better about going into an MRI scanner. One patient said: “I'm always afraid. But this time was so different. I cried. Not from anxiety, but from relief."