Amidst a whirlwind of innovation and uncertainty, healthcare marketers are faced with a pivotal question: How do you harness the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) responsibly without getting lost in its complexities, especially when privacy concerns are at the top of your mind?
At this year’s Healthcare Marketers and Physicians Summit (HMPS), the role of AI in healthcare marketing took center stage as industry leaders and innovators discussed its transformative impact and the ethical considerations it brings. I’m deeply curious about how marketers leverage AI, and upon seeing the title (Senior Director of AI Adoption) on my name tag, I found that marketers were eager to pick my brain.
Over the course of the three-day event, I documented the sorts of questions I was fielding to decode healthcare marketers’ perceptions, exploration, and adoption of AI. My main takeaway: while enthusiasm is high, there’s also a substantial need for clarity on how AI can be practically applied.
healthcare marketers are beginning to explore AI
The buzz around AI’s potential and pitfalls was impossible to ignore, and I was able to have more than 20 individual conversations over the course of the event.
Healthcare marketers were often interested in probing into implementation best practices and use cases from our work with other health systems. This was the most common topic of conversation, signaling that most attendees I spoke with were in the very early stages of marketing AI adoption.
There is a major gap in foundational knowledge and understanding of AI’s potential, with many seeking guidance on starting points and practical steps for implementation. If you find yourself in the same position, I would encourage you to do two things:
First, understand what you’re already doing with AI. Chances are, the tools you use already have AI built in. This helps to demystify the technology.
Second, I would find ways to adopt AI in your personal life. A favorite example among Fathomers is a sommelier GPT attuned to your unique wine preferences that can suggest pairings. Leveraging AI in your personal life will pay dividends professionally.
it’s no surprise that compliance, ethics, and legal considerations are top-of-mind
Ethical and legal considerations arose early and often in these discussions, with a significant focus on navigating HIPAA compliance and mitigating legal risks. Healthcare marketers strongly desire to develop AI applications that are both ethical and low-risk, ensuring safety and compliance are not compromised. This is definitely encouraging.
I would also encourage healthcare marketers to look to the clinical side, where innovation is happening rapidly and in ways that are sometimes hard to imagine. For an example of how healthcare embraces AI, check out AlphaFold by DeepMind, an AI system that predicts protein structures, empowering truly remarkable breakthroughs.
We have ethical, compliant applications available, and leading systems are already using them to create marketing value.
don’t wait to get started
Healthcare marketers are eager yet cautious to explore AI but unsure where to begin. There is a high demand for practical AI applications. This curiosity is driven by enthusiasm to test new strategies and a fear of falling behind as AI reshapes healthcare. The absence of clear guidelines on AI implementation leads to uncertainty about where to start, especially responsibly and ethically. Don’t let that uncertainty impede your exploration and adoption.
maximizing value with AI: a guidebook for healthcare marketers
In response to this need for direction and clarity, we published AI Empowered, an essential guidebook for healthcare marketers exploring AI adoption. It’s full of the foundational knowledge required to harness AI effectively and responsibly.
AI Empowered offers practical steps and real-world examples of marketing AI applications to:
- Deliver and demonstrate marketing value
- Reskill and upskill your team
- Understand and unlock your data
- Enhance your creative and content strategies
- Find and creative efficiencies in your work
embrace the power of AI: download your guidebook today
We invite you to download our digital AI guidebook today. Begin your journey with an intentionally developed resource informed by experience working with leading health systems.
