Use Display Mode on a Wall or Desk Screen

Display mode turns Rooms › Schedule into a full-screen display for a screen that stays open all day, such as a TV at the OR desk or a monitor in a charge nurse's office. It hides the menus, uses large text that can be read from across the room, and keeps itself up to date without anyone touching it. It stays signed in as the person who started it, and shows only what that person can see.

For a screen that runs with nobody signed in, pair it instead. See Pair a Wall Display.

Who Is This For?

• OR desk staff, charge nurses and perioperative leaders who want the day's rooms on a screen at the desk

Start Display Mode

Display mode runs in a web browser on a computer, on a screen at least 1024 pixels wide. It isn't available on phones, or while you are viewing Theator as another user.

1. Open Rooms › Schedule.
2. If you want one site only, select it on the page. The display shows today's rooms for the site you selected.
3. Click Options and select Display mode.
4. In Use this screen as a display?, tick This screen is in a staff-only area where patients and visitors can't see it. You confirm this every time you start a display.
5. Click Start display.

Theator asks your browser to go full screen. If the screen doesn't go full screen, press F11 (Windows) or Ctrl+Cmd+F (Mac), or move the mouse and click Full screen.

What the Display Shows

• One row per room on a timeline from 3 hours before now to 4 hours ahead. Each row starts with what the room is doing, such as In case, Patient in room, Turnover, Done for today or No cases today.
• The day's counts along the top, such as Rooms running, Not started and Running over.
• A legend at the bottom that explains the bars.
• Your name at the bottom, for example Signed in as Dana K., so everyone can see whose account the screen is using.

To see the whole day instead of the 7-hour window, move the mouse and click Whole day in the toolbar. Click it again to go back.

While the Display Is Running

• It keeps itself up to date. The display checks for new information every 15 seconds and shows when it last updated, for example Updated 6 s ago.
• It pages through the rooms. When there are more rooms than fit on the screen, it shows them a page at a time and turns the page every 30 seconds, for example Page 1 of 3. Moving the mouse or pressing a key holds the current page; paging resumes 30 seconds after you stop.
• Moving the mouse or pressing a key shows a toolbar for 5 seconds, with Exit display mode, Whole day and, when the screen isn't full screen, Full screen. The pointer hides again when you stop.
• Overnight, after an hour with no case in progress and none booked in the next hour, the display switches to a dark night screen, for example No cases in progress in Main OR with First case Thu 07:30 booked under it. It returns to the full display when a case starts or one is booked within the hour.
• It reloads itself between 03:00 and 05:00 hospital time when no case is in progress, and after Theator releases an update, so it runs the current version.
• It asks the browser to keep the screen on. The computer's own power settings can still turn the screen off; see Set Up a Computer for a Display below.

If the Network Drops

The display keeps trying. When an update arrives, the bar disappears.

Leave Display Mode

• Move the mouse and click Exit display mode, or
• Press Esc twice, or
• Use the browser's Back button.

Within 15 minutes of starting, you go straight back to Rooms › Schedule. After 15 minutes, leaving display mode asks you to sign in again, as the start dialog says: After 15 minutes, leaving display mode asks for your password again. The screen reads Leaving display mode. Sign in to continue. and opens the sign-in page. This stops someone walking past from stepping out of the display into your account. Until you sign in, opening any other Theator page in that browser tab asks for the same sign-in.

Why a Display Can Show the Sign-In Page

Display mode doesn't sign itself out when nobody touches the screen. Two things still matter:

• Other Theator pages sign out after about a day without use.
• Signing out in one Theator tab signs out every Theator tab in the same browser, the display included.

So if another Theator tab is open in the browser that runs the display, that tab can sign the display out, for example over a weekend. Running the display in a browser profile of its own, as described below, prevents this.

If a display shows the sign-in page, sign in again. If Theator then opens a different page, start display mode again.

Set Up a Computer for a Display

Ask your IT team to set up the computer that runs the display like this:

• Use a browser profile only for the display. In Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, create a separate profile, sign in to Theator in it, and keep only the display open there. Use Theator for everything else in a different profile or browser, so no other tab can sign the display out.
• Don't use a Guest, Incognito or InPrivate window. These forget the sign-in when the browser closes, so the screen shows the sign-in page after every restart.
• Reopen the display after a restart. Set the profile to reopen its tabs when the browser starts. The display's page address holds its settings, so the same display opens again.
• Keep the computer awake. Turn off sleep and the screen saver in the computer's power settings.
• Place the screen in a staff-only area, as you confirm each time you start display mode.

What a Display Never Shows

• Patients
• Video
• More than the person signed in to it can see on their own Rooms page
• Surgeon names and procedures, unless your organization's Admins have allowed them. See the Choose What Shared Displays Show article.

What's Next?

• Rooms › Schedule — The schedule the display is built on
• Pair a Wall Display — A screen that shows a board of rooms with nobody signed in
• Managing Your Organization — Where Admins set display privacy