Navigating the AI Landscape in Healthcare Marketing: Key Insights from HMPS 2024
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not just a buzzword in healthcare anymore; it's a tool that’s rapidly reshaping the industry's landscape. From content creation to personalized patient experiences, AI technology is creating new opportunities for healthcare marketers and practitioners alike. So what does that mean for your organization?
The Lewis team recently attended the Healthcare Marketing and Physician Strategies Summit hosted by the Forum for Healthcare Strategists—an event where industry leaders gathered to discuss the power and potential of AI. Here are a few of our key takeaways:
AI Applications in Healthcare Marketing:
According to a survey of attendees, most healthcare marketers currently use AI for content creation (referred to widely as Generative AI). However, everyone agrees that the tool’s potential extends far beyond that, encompassing customer segmentation, predictive analytics, and much more.
Despite its widespread adoption, AI governance remains very much a mixed bag. As Carlton Wood, Lewis EVP and Partner, points out: “Some organizations employ detailed plans and staff, while others still lack a structured approach. We’re still in a relatively new phase of this era.”
Generative AI: open vs. closed networks
Currently, healthcare networks are using either open or closed networks for their Generative AI purposes—and there are benefits and drawbacks to both.
Closed networks allow information to be put into the system from multiple sources, but put up a firewall to keep the information from going back out to the open web. These networks make it easier to maintain data security and compliance, but they also negatively impact transparency and innovation.
Open AI networks, on the other hand, enable data to flow between and among multiple networks, platforms and geographical locations. And while these networks allow for higher transparency and data growth, they also present serious security and quality challenges.
Jennifer Carter, VP Channel Engagement at Lewis, has a word of caution about the latter. “The main challenge with open generative AI is that a company’s intellectual property is at stake. Are you willing to share that information with everyone?”
The Lewis team recommendation is that most healthcare networks are better off using closed networks and stay compliant with regulations.
AI in Healthcare Operations:
In the operations arena, AI offers a huge capacity to automate, assist, and augment human work. Many healthcare systems use the tool to optimize data analysis, consumer experience and even live agent assistance. Everyone agrees, however, on the importance of partnering with reputable vendors and data security.
A few conference speakers championed a more cautious approach to AI adoption, with some blocking platforms like ChatGPT to safeguard proprietary information and others even developing their own encrypted chatbot for internal use.
The New Era of Search
AI is also transforming search experiences, with conversational chatbot searches gaining traction over traditional Google searches. Content strategies need to adapt to embrace long-tail keywords, address local voice queries, and optimize for featured snippets.
Our Thoughts
There’s no doubt AI is revolutionizing healthcare marketing and operations, offering unprecedented opportunities for efficiency, personalization, and innovation. However, navigating the AI landscape requires careful consideration of ethical, privacy, and security concerns alongside strategic implementation and collaboration across all levels of healthcare organizations. As the industry continues to evolve, embracing AI will be essential for staying competitive and delivering exceptional care to patients worldwide.
Read on to see how we’ve begun leveraging AI at Lewis.
