Explore every episode of the podcast Swaay.Health Podcast

100 episodes! Can you believe it?

It’s hard to believe, but the Swaay.Health Podcast has officially hit triple digits.

Over the past 100 episodes, we’ve had the chance to sit down with some incredible healthcare marketers, leaders, innovators, and friends. We’ve talked strategy, community, content, careers, AI, conferences, and just about everything in between.

So, for Episode 100, we decided to do something a little different.

Instead of interviewing someone else, John Lynn, Colin Hung, and I turned the microphones on ourselves for what was supposed to be a rapid-fire conversation. Spoiler alert: We weren’t particularly good at the “rapid” part.

We looked back at some of the interviews we’ll never forget, the guests who made us rethink things, and our favorite conference memories. We also got into some bigger healthcare marketing questions including the myths we’d like to bust, old-school marketing tactics making a comeback, how we’re actually using AI, and what we think healthcare marketing could look like in 2030.

And, because it wouldn’t be a Swaay.Health conversation without going a little off-script, we also tackled some of the really important questions: window or aisle seat? Carry-on or checked bag? Early morning keynote or late-night networking?

In the episode, we talk about:

• The Swaay.Health interviews that have stuck with us and why
• Our dream podcast guests, from Gary Vaynerchuk to Terry Fox
• Healthcare marketing myths we don’t necessarily agree on
• Why newsletters, direct mail, and highly personalized outreach may be making a comeback
• Some of our favorite conference memories
• The AI prompts we actually use in our everyday work
• What we’d be doing if we weren’t working in healthcare marketing
• Why trust, creativity, and human connection may matter more than ever as we head toward 2030

Most importantly, Episode 100 gave us a chance to reflect on what has made this podcast so much fun to create: this community.

The guests who have shared their experiences with us, the listeners who continue to tune in, and the incredible community that has grown around these conversations.

Thank you to everyone who has been part of the first 100 episodes.

Here’s to the next 100!

Check out the full conversation below.

If you’d like to be a guest on our podcast or know someone who would be a great fit, we’d love to hear from you! Reach out to us!

You can subscribe to the Swaay.Health Podcast on any of the following platforms:

• Apple Podcast
• YouTube Music
• Spotify
• iHeartRadio
• Pandora
• Amazon Music

Some people build successful careers by focusing on what’s next for themselves. Others make a point of bringing people along with them.

Abdul Rastagar has spent years doing both. As Co-Founder of Sirona Marketing, Abdul has built a career spanning life sciences, healthcare, technology, and marketing. But within the healthcare marketing community, he’s also become known for something that doesn’t necessarily show up on a resume: his willingness to share what he knows, make connections, mentor others, and help people succeed.

It’s that commitment to the community that earned Abdul the 2026 Swaay.Health Distinguished Service Award.

What makes his approach particularly interesting is that it didn’t begin with a grand plan to become a mentor. It started with a simple question: Where could he give his time and knowledge and actually see the impact?

For Abdul, the answer became the marketing community.

Over the years, that decision has led him to create resources for job seekers, share his network, mentor fellow marketers, and directly help dozens of people land new roles.

I sat down with Abdul to talk about giving back, the career lessons he’s learned along the way, why trust is becoming increasingly important in an AI-driven world, and the advice he believes the next generation of healthcare marketers needs to hear.

• Why giving back became such an important part of Abdul’s career.
• Don’t work for jerks: The career mantra he wishes he had learned sooner.
• Why trust may be one of healthcare marketing’s biggest challenges in the age of AI.
• How marketers can make networking more intentional and actually useful.
• Why judgment, communication, and creativity will matter even more as AI becomes ubiquitous.

Watch the full interview or listen to the podcast below, then keep reading for some of our biggest takeaways.

Abdul’s commitment to giving back became especially tangible during the pandemic.

As marketers around him began losing their jobs, he looked for a way to put his own experience and network to use. That led to Up Your Game, a podcast focused on helping marketers navigate job applications and interviews from a marketing perspective.

What started as one way to help quickly grew. Abdul brought CMOs and other leaders into the conversation and ultimately produced more than 100 episodes in a single year.

For Abdul, that’s what giving back looks like: finding the skills, knowledge, or network you already have and using them to create a tangible impact for someone else. As he shared throughout our conversation, “I get excited whenever I see somebody else succeed.” Seeing other people succeed has become its own reward for Abdul.

It’s a simple reminder that contributing to your professional community doesn’t have to mean launching a massive initiative. Sometimes it starts with sharing what you know, making an introduction, or taking the time to help someone who needs it.

Not every career lesson has to be complicated.

At Sirona Marketing, Abdul and his team have several internal mantras based on lessons learned through their own experiences.

One of them?: “Don’t work for jerks.”

It’s funny, but there’s an important lesson behind it.

Earlier in his career, Abdul was more likely to stay in situations that weren’t working and simply suffer through them. Experience taught him to recognize those situations sooner and be more willing to walk away when someone clearly didn’t have his best interests at heart.

And, as he quickly pointed out during our conversation, there’s an equally important second half to that rule: Don’t be a jerk either.

It’s straightforward career advice, but perhaps some of the most useful.

It’s nearly impossible to have a conversation about healthcare marketing in 2026 without talking about AI.

But for Abdul, one of the biggest changes AI is creating isn’t just increased productivity or automation.

It’s a growing issue of trust.

Consumers are being inundated with more content than ever before. Some is human-created. Some is AI-generated. Some is accurate. Some isn’t. And as the volume increases, audiences are becoming more skeptical about what they see, hear, and believe.

“That changes the job of the marketer,” said Abdul. He believes marketers need to work harder to demonstrate authenticity, credibility, and real expertise. And sometimes the best way to do that has very little to do with technology.

Have conversations. Host roundtables. Sit down for dinner with customers. Visit them in person. Be human.

 That doesn’t mean avoiding AI. Abdul and his team are actively using it. In fact, he introduced me to the thought of thinking of AI tools as “teammates” that can automate work and expand what a team is capable of doing.

But those teammates still need oversight. AI can make mistakes. Outputs need to be checked. Human judgment still matters.

For small healthcare marketing teams in particular, AI can dramatically expand capacity. The opportunity is to use it to make the team stronger without removing the human expertise that makes the work credible in the first place.

“Network more” might be one of the most common pieces of career advice.

It’s also not particularly useful unless someone tells you what that actually means.

Abdul first heard the importance of networking in business school, but he admits it took years before he truly understood its value. Once he became more intentional about building relationships, he saw a significant impact on his career and professional success.

His advice for making networking more actionable is simple: Think about two or three things you want to accomplish over the next five years. Then ask yourself: Who is already where I want to be? Find those people and start reaching out.

They might be former colleagues. They might be mutual connections. They might be complete strangers whose careers you find interesting.

The point isn’t to collect LinkedIn connections. It’s to start conversations and build genuine relationships.

Sometimes those conversations lead to professional opportunities. Sometimes they lead to friendships. Sometimes they simply introduce you to a person, perspective, or experience you wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.

All of them have value.

When I asked Abdul what skills the next generation of healthcare marketers will need over the next decade, AI was inevitably part of his answer.

Marketers will need to know how to use it. But knowing how to use AI may not be what ultimately differentiates them.

Judgment, communication, and creativity will.

Abdul is already seeing this with younger marketers entering the workforce. Learning how to use AI tools is important, but so is knowing when the output is wrong, when something doesn’t sound human, or when an answer simply doesn’t make sense. That requires critical thinking.

The marketers who stand out won’t necessarily be the ones who can generate the most content or build the most AI workflows. They’ll be the ones who know what to do with those capabilities.

They’ll ask better questions. They’ll recognize bad information. They’ll communicate like humans. And they’ll use technology to create things that are genuinely useful.

At the end of our conversation, I asked Abdul what “distinguished” means to him. He laughed at the word itself, saying it sounded a little too lofty.

But his answer captured exactly why he received the Distinguished Service Award in the first place.

For him, it comes down to giving back and passing it forward. Share what you know. Help other people succeed. Make the introduction. Have the conversation. Give someone else the benefit of what you’ve learned.

Careers are built on skills and experience, but they’re also built on people.

And Abdul’s career is a great reminder of just how much impact we can have when we make helping those people part of the work.

Congratulations again to Abdul Rastagar, recipient of the 2026 Swaay.Health Distinguished Service Award.

Learn more about Sirona Marketing here: https://www.sirona.marketing/

When people think about healthcare innovation, marketing isn’t always the first thing that comes to mind.

But sometimes the biggest breakthroughs happen because someone asks a simple question: “Would someone outside this industry actually understand this?”

That’s the perspective Sadie Andersen brings to her role as Marketing & Communications Coordinator at The Sequoia Project and it’s one of the many reasons she was recognized as one of Swaay.Health’s 2026 Marketing Rising Stars.

Sadie didn’t begin her career in healthcare. In fact, it was working with caregivers and experiencing the healthcare system herself that opened her eyes to just how difficult something as fundamental as accessing medical records can be. Those experiences ultimately led her to healthcare marketing, where she now helps communicate some of the industry’s most complex topics in ways people can actually understand.

“I had an easier time seeing the gaps because I wasn’t native to the industry,” Sadie shared during our conversation. “There were areas where I could say, ‘I don’t know what that word means,’ and realize a lot of other people probably didn’t either.”

That outside perspective has become one of her greatest strengths.

Sadie’s story is a great reminder that some of the strongest marketing ideas come from curiosity, fresh perspective, and a willingness to ask the questions others may overlook.

We sat down with Sadie to talk about her path into healthcare marketing, what winning the Marketing Rising Star Award means to her, how she approaches communicating complex topics, and the lessons she’s learned early in her career.

• Why an outsider’s perspective can be one of a healthcare marketer’s greatest strengths.
• How to communicate complex healthcare topics in ways people actually understand.
• The leadership mindset that helped Sadie become a Marketing Rising Star.
• Why adaptability—not perfection—is one of the most valuable skills marketers can develop.

Watch the full conversation or listen to the podcast below, then keep reading for some of our biggest takeaways.

Healthcare is full of acronyms, technical language, and highly specialized topics. For organizations working in interoperability and health information exchange, that complexity can quickly become a communication barrier.

Rather than adding to the jargon, Sadie focuses on removing it. Her approach is straightforward: break complicated ideas into smaller pieces, tell stories, use visuals whenever possible, and never lose sight of the people behind the technology. If the content doesn’t feel interesting or human, she believes it’s probably time to rethink it.

It’s advice every healthcare marketer can benefit from. Because the goal isn’t simply to explain technology, it’s to help people understand why it matters.

One of the qualities highlighted throughout Sadie’s award nomination wasn’t a campaign or a metric.

It was a mindset. She’s known for saying: “You didn’t ask this, but I thought it would be helpful.”

That simple philosophy has helped her identify opportunities, launch new projects, and create resources that benefit her entire organization. Having previously worked in startup environments, she developed the habit of spotting gaps and stepping forward to solve them instead of waiting to be asked.

That initiative also extended beyond creating content.

Sadie developed an editorial strategy that brought greater consistency to The Sequoia Project’s communications, then spent time educating staff and members on how they could amplify the organization’s message through LinkedIn and other channels. She emphasizes that even small actions: liking, commenting, or resharing a post, can have an outsized impact when an entire community participates.

I asked Sadie what skill matters most for marketers entering the profession today, and her answer isn’t writing, design, or analytics.

It’s adaptability.

Marketing plans change. Industries evolve. Priorities shift.

The marketers who succeed are the ones who can pivot, stay resilient, and keep moving forward even when the original plan no longer applies. She also credits supportive colleagues and mentors as one of the biggest contributors to her own growth, reminding us that great careers are rarely built alone.

The Marketing Rising Star Award recognizes emerging professionals who are already making a meaningful impact on their organizations and the broader healthcare marketing community.

After speaking with Sadie, it’s easy to understand why she was selected.

Her curiosity, willingness to lead, and ability to make complex healthcare topics accessible are qualities our industry needs more of and they’re exactly what makes the future of healthcare marketing so exciting.

Congratulations again to Sadie Andersen, we can’t wait to see what comes next.

Interested in the work Sadie and The Sequoia Project are doing? Join them at the 2026 Sequoia Project & Carequality Annual Meeting on October 28–29 in Texas.

The EHR market is crowded with cautious messaging. Standing out requires a distinct edge, not just a list of product features. Swaay.Health sat down with Ryan Pfister, Director of Brand Strategy and Marketing at Juno Health, to explore the strategy behind their edgy rebrand. You will discover how his team anchors their core messaging in raw customer frustration to safely separate their brand from the pack. We also discuss how to adjust your messaging for risk-averse buyers and secure executive approval for bold campaigns.

For many healthcare marketing teams, social media can feel like a constant battle against changing algorithms, shrinking attention spans, and pressure to produce more content.

But for the team at Optimum Healthcare IT, LinkedIn has become much more than another marketing channel. It’s a business development engine, a thought leadership platform, and one of the primary ways they educate healthcare organizations while showcasing the expertise of their team.  

That approach has helped Optimum grow its LinkedIn community to more than 220,000 followers and recently earned the team the 2026 Swaay.Health Award for Best Use of Social Media.

I recently got to sit down with Larry Kaiser, Chief Marketing Officer, and Dani Patterson, Director of Marketing Operations and Events at Optimum Healthcare IT to get a behind the scenes look at how they transformed the company’s social presence over the past decade and why their strategy is about far more than simply posting more often.

• Create educational content that solves real problems instead of promoting products.
• Repurpose every asset into multiple formats and posts.
• Invest in building employee thought leaders alongside your corporate brand.
• Plan ahead, but stay fluid enough to adapt to trends and industry news.
• Sustainable social media growth comes from consistency, not always viral moments

Here are a just a few of the biggest lessons from the conversation.

Rather than treating LinkedIn as a place to simply promote services, Optimum focuses on answering the questions healthcare leaders are already asking.

Whether it’s advice on an EHR implementation, cloud strategy, ServiceNow, or another healthcare IT challenge, their content is designed to give the audience something useful. Blog posts become infographics. Whitepapers become checklists. Subject matter experts share lessons learned from real-world experience.

As Larry explained, “We’re really just taking our experience across the industry and presenting it in a way that makes sense.”

The goal is to create the kind of content someone can actually use, something they can save, share with their team, or put into practice.

Dani describes it as giving people “tools in their toolbox” that they can pull out when they need them. And increasingly, that educational approach has another benefit: it aligns with the way people are searching for answers through ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and other AI-powered platforms.

One of the biggest mistakes marketers can make is spending hours creating a great piece of content, sharing it once, and moving on.

Optimum takes a very different approach: A single blog post might generate six or more social posts, each highlighting a different idea, question, takeaway, or audience. Podcasts can generate weeks of content. Existing whitepapers can be transformed into entirely new campaigns. Dani describes the strategy as “reduce, reuse, recycle,” explaining, “We usually put something out there 8, 9, 10, 12 times in totally different formats.”

That doesn’t mean copying and pasting the same LinkedIn post over and over. It means finding new ways into the same valuable content so it has multiple opportunities to reach the right people.

For Dani, the repurposing also happens while the content is still fresh. When she creates the initial social post for a blog, she often creates four, five, or six additional posts at the same time and immediately adds them to the content calendar.

Optimum’s strategy also extends far beyond its corporate LinkedIn page.

The marketing team actively works with employees and subject matter experts to help build their individual presence on LinkedIn—particularly around major industry events. As Dani put it, “People perform better than a faceless organization.”

Ahead of large healthcare IT conferences, the team begins planning months in advance, identifying subject matter experts who can contribute to the conversation and helping them create content for their individual networks. Instead of simply telling employees to post, the marketing team helps develop the messaging and strategy alongside them.

That approach gives Optimum access to something its corporate following alone can’t provide: highly relevant audiences that its experts have already spent years building relationships with. It’s also helping position those employees as recognizable thought leaders in their areas of expertise.

Of course, hearing that Optimum sometimes posts once or even several times a day can be intimidating for marketers working on smaller teams. Dani readily admits that maintaining that cadence requires planning.

Optimum generally plans its social content at least one month ahead and, when possible, two or three months in advance. But that calendar isn’t meant to lock the team into a rigid plan. Their philosophy is simple: fluidity over flexibility. As Dani explains, “You may have a goal to post every day. You may have a goal to post twice a week. Whatever that goal is, it’s okay if you miss something.”

The important part is continuing to work toward consistency while leaving enough room to respond to what’s happening in the industry.

For Larry, the results have reinforced the importance of simply staying visible. “When we started posting every single day, that’s really when our growth shot straight up because we’re staying in front of people.”

Perhaps the most important takeaway from Optimum’s story is that there wasn’t one viral post or campaign that suddenly changed everything.

When Larry joined the company in 2016, the company had just over 4,000 LinkedIn followers. Roughly two years later, that number had doubled to 8,000.

The growth accelerated as the organization invested in more content, earned executive buy-in, involved more subject matter experts, and continually adjusted its strategy.

Today, the company has more than 220,000 LinkedIn followers, a LinkedIn newsletter with approximately 70,000 subscribers, and an average engagement rate Kaiser says is significantly higher than broader LinkedIn benchmarks.

But Kaiser is quick to emphasize that their success took time. “It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s a process.” The team kept experimenting, adjusting, and learning until they discovered what worked for their company and their audiences. And that may ultimately be the most useful lesson for other healthcare marketers.

There isn’t one LinkedIn playbook every organization needs to follow. Know your audience. Create genuinely useful content. Give that content more than one opportunity to succeed. Empower the people inside your organization. Stay consistent, but stay fluid.

And most importantly, give the strategy time to work.

Learn more about Optimum Healthcare IT.

Taking your healthcare brand into a new country is never as simple as recycling your domestic marketing playbook. If you try to enter Australia without understanding its hybrid funding models and regional care challenges, your brand will fall flat. Swaay.Health sat down with Peter Birch, Host of Talking HealthTech, at the HIC conference in Sydney to break down the realities of the Australian digital health ecosystem. Birch shares essential advice for foreign vendors, details how national interoperability initiatives like Sparked are uniting the industry, and reveals what it has been like producing more than 620 podcast episodes. You will learn why local presence matters and how to position your company for success in Australia.

Making the leap from an in-house marketing leader to a fractional executive is a big decision, especially in today’s healthcare landscape. For Alex Ferraro, founder of ABF Marketing and Swaay.Health’s 2026 Community Member of the Year, the move was fueled by a desire to help more organizations avoid common marketing pitfalls while building something of her own. “Fractional means flexible,” Alex explains. “It allows me to meet my clients where they’re at.” Rather than simply acting as an advisor, she combines strategy with hands-on execution to help healthcare organizations invest in the right marketing initiatives at the right stage of growth.

In our conversation, Alex shares the lessons she’s learned from launching her own business, the importance of building genuine relationships, and the mindset shifts that have helped her grow both personally and professionally. Here are three takeaways that stood out to me before you dive into the full interview.

Takeaways from Our Conversation

• Community is your greatest asset. Strong relationships, generosity, and staying connected often lead to career-defining opportunities.
• Fractional isn’t just client work. Building a successful business means mastering everything happening behind the scenes, too.
• Progress beats perfection. Focusing on the next small step is the fastest way to overcome overwhelm.

If there was one theme woven throughout our conversation, it was this: community is one of the most valuable investments you can make in your career.

Alex shares how mentors, former colleagues, and the broader Swaay.Health community gave her the confidence to launch her own business, and how one relationship from a job she didn’t get eventually led to one of her very first clients. “You never know who someone knows or can connect you to,” she says. “It just comes down to being a good human being.” It’s a reminder that meaningful relationships aren’t built around transactions, they’re built on trust, generosity, and consistently showing up for others.

Alex offered practical advice for marketers navigating career changes, entrepreneurship, or personal growth. Running a business, she explains, means wearing two hats: delivering great work for clients while also managing everything that comes with being a business owner. From pricing and processes to staying focused on priorities, success requires discipline.

One lesson that really resonated with me and one that shifted Alex’s mindset as well—came from a recent productivity book she had been reading (Procrastination Proof). One question stuck with her: “What can you get done in the next hour?” Rather than getting overwhelmed by a never-ending to-do list, she focuses on the next manageable step. It’s something I’ve been trying to implement too, and I honestly find it helps. Breaking big projects into smaller, actionable chunks makes it much easier to get started and once you get started, the momentum usually follows.

Whether you’re considering launching your own business, growing your personal brand, or simply looking to build stronger professional relationships, this conversation is packed with thoughtful insights and practical advice you can put into action today.

Want to learn more about ABF Marketing or connect with Alex? Visit ABF Marketing to learn more about her fractional marketing services and how she helps healthcare organizations grow.

Bringing two agencies together usually results in operational chaos. The leadership team at KNB Communications and Roketto prioritized cultural alignment and employee job security over sudden workflow changes when merging to create Sovyn. Discover their secret to a smooth merger + rebrand.

Securing top digital honors usually requires a massive external agency and an unlimited checkbook. OntarioMD proved you can achieve excellence entirely in-house. Find out how their marketing team navigated competing stakeholder demands to build a critically acclaimed platform.

When someone is diagnosed with cancer, an incredible support system often springs into action around the patient. Friends deliver meals. Family members check in. Healthcare teams focus on treatment plans.

But as the weeks turn into months (and sometimes years), one group quietly fades into the background.

The caregivers.

For Charlotte Bayala, founder and host of The Cancer Caregiver Podcast and winner of the 2026 Swaay.Health Podcast of the Year Award, that reality became deeply personal after her husband was diagnosed with incurable thyroid cancer more than a decade ago. Suddenly thrust into a role she never expected, Charlotte found plenty of information about caring for the patient but almost nothing about caring for herself.

“There is plenty of information about cancer and treatments and how to support the patient,” Charlotte explained. “But very little spoke directly to what I was experiencing and what I needed.”

That experience ultimately inspired her to create The Cancer Caregiver Podcast—a community dedicated to helping caregivers feel seen, supported and less alone.

During our conversation, Charlotte shared powerful insights that extend well beyond cancer caregiving. Her lessons apply to anyone supporting a loved one through illness, disability or life’s most difficult seasons.

This conversation hit especially close to home for me. My mom is a full-time caregiver for my stepdad following a brain injury, and my brother is currently undergoing cancer treatment. I know our family isn’t alone, millions of caregivers are navigating similar challenges every day. Charlotte’s advice is for all of them.

Take moment to to hear the four of the biggest takeaways from our conversation.

• Caregivers need support too. Looking after yourself isn’t selfish, it’s what allows you to continue caring for someone else.
• Feeling overwhelmed doesn’t make you a bad caregiver. Guilt, exhaustion, grief and even frustration are all normal parts of the caregiving journey.
• Small acts of support make the biggest difference. Instead of saying “Let me know if you need anything,” offer specific, practical help.
• Community reminds caregivers they aren’t alone. Simply being seen, heard and understood can make an enormous difference.

One of the biggest misconceptions Charlotte encountered and hears is the belief that taking care of yourself somehow takes away from the person you’re caring for.

Instead, she encourages caregivers to think differently. “Self-care isn’t a reward for getting everything done. It’s maintenance.” In fact, Charlotte prefers another phrase entirely. “I love using the word self-preservation because self-care is overused. The goal isn’t to become less caring when you care for yourself. The goal is to remain well enough to continue caring the way you’d like to.”

Many caregivers tell themselves they’ll rest later. They’ll ask for help later. They’ll take care of themselves once things calm down.

But, as Charlotte points out, later rarely comes. Sometimes self-preservation starts with something as small as five uninterrupted minutes and learning that those five minutes aren’t something to feel guilty about.

Throughout the interview, Charlotte returned to one recurring theme: caregivers often feel invisible.

Not because people don’t care. Because people don’t know what to say.

One of the most powerful moments of our conversation came when she described how discouraging it can be for caregivers to finally open up about their fears, only to hear responses like: “Just stay positive” or “Everything will work out.” Instead, Charlotte says caregivers often need something much simpler. “Sometimes we just need someone to say, ‘That really sucks. I can’t believe that happened.'” Validation (not solutions) is often the greatest gift we can give.

Her podcast creates space for caregivers to acknowledge emotions that are often hidden: fear, guilt, resentment, grief, exhaustion and loneliness. As Charlotte puts it: “The connection starts when people realize they don’t have to pretend.”

It’s one of the most common phrases we offer someone going through a difficult time (I do it myself!). But it’s also one of the least helpful.

Charlotte explained that asking caregivers to tell us what they need unintentionally creates another task on an already overwhelming to-do list.

Instead, make the decision for them. Rather than asking what they need, try saying:

• “I’m at the grocery store. What can I pick up for you?”
• “I’m dropping dinner off at 5 p.m. Is that okay?”
• “I’m mowing my lawn this afternoon, I’ll do yours too.”

Small, specific acts remove decision-making and make accepting help much easier. She also reminds us that support shouldn’t disappear after the initial diagnosis. “You get this wave of support in the beginning,” she said. “Then six months later, everyone goes back to their lives but the caregiver is still caregiving.”

Sometimes the most meaningful gesture isn’t a grand one. It’s simply sending a text months later that says: “I’m thinking about you.”

For someone who has just become a caregiver, the pressure to do everything (and do it perfectly) can feel overwhelming. Charlotte encourages caregivers to let go of the idea that they need to become experts overnight. “You don’t have to figure everything out on the first day,” she said. “You’re going to feel pressure to become an expert overnight and to do things you have no skills to do.”

Instead, she encourages caregivers to focus on the next step rather than trying to solve every challenge at once. Being present in the moment not only helps reduce anxiety, but also allows caregivers to experience the meaningful moments they are working so hard to protect. As Charlotte put it: “Caregivers give up being able to care for themselves… so they can help the person they love live. But then, as they’re doing that, they lose the ability to actually live the life they were trying to fight for.”

Her advice is simple but profound: care deeply for your loved one but don’t forget that your own life, your own joy, and your own well-being matter too.

At Swaay.Health, community has always been about more than just professional networking. It’s about recognizing the people whose work often happens quietly, behind the scenes, and making sure they know they aren’t alone.

Charlotte Bayala has built far more than an award-winning podcast. She’s created a community where caregivers can put down the weight they carry (even if only for a little while) and hear something many of them desperately need: We see you.

Are you tired of your sales team complaining they were not invited to pitch a major deal? The problem usually points to a broken go to market strategy and a leaky customer retention bucket.
Swaay.Health sat down with Alan Gonsenhauser, founder and CEO of Demand Revenue, to unpack his eight pillar go to market operating system. Gonsenhauser details exactly why fixing customer churn must happen before pouring money into demand generation and how true internal alignment drives sustainable revenue. Marketers will learn how to build an ideal customer profile based on data and why brand building is actually a boardroom issue.

The temptation to let AI do all the heavy lifting is incredibly high when you are a solo marketer. But relying on quick prompts yields empty-calorie content that your audience will ignore. To truly move the needle, solo marketers need to stop trying to be a content factory and start behaving like a knowledge translator. Swaay.Health sat down with Jennifer Lazarz, Director of Marketing at Medical Informatics Corp, to discuss how to survive and thrive as a solo marketer. She shares how smart boundaries and a clear focus on quality can help marketers navigate an automated landscape without losing their creative voice.

Patients are already skipping your beautifully designed website navigation to ask AI directly for healthcare answers. If your digital front door isn't rebuilt for conversational search, your content might as well not exist. Adeline Ashley from Sitecore sat down with Swaay.Health to discuss the reality of AI in healthcare search. She breaks down the core concepts from her new book, “The Agentic Loop: How Humans and AI Build Experiences That Can Learn”, and explains why marketers must change focus to designing experiences that AI agents can read and learn from. She shares a framework you can use to keep your brand visible and avoid the trap of setting and forgetting your tech deployments.

Healthcare and the aerospace industry share a lot more airspace than you might think. We always hear about the regulations and the high stakes. What happens when you look at how these massive industries handle marketing? Swaay.Health sat down with Wayne Barringer, CEO of Jaro Group. Barringer spent years working in the communications and creative teams at Boeing and now consults in healthcare. He breaks down why finite markets force a shift from lead generation to deep sales support. He also explains how infrastructure lock-in dictates the buying committee. Barringer shares why marketing teams need to stop saying yes to every sales request and start helping their business partners think.

As AI-powered search tools become the first stop for healthcare buyers, patients, and caregivers, the rules of discoverability are changing.

People aren’t searching for links anymore. They’re searching for answers.

That shift has major implications for healthcare marketers, communicators, and PR professionals who have spent years optimizing websites, building thought leadership programs, and earning media coverage.

In a recent conversation, I sat down with Ivan Ruiz, Partner of Integrated Strategy, Health & Business Development at FINN Partners, to discuss how AI is reshaping content discovery, why trust is becoming the most valuable currency online, and what healthcare organizations need to do now to ensure credible voices rise above the noise.

• AI favors answers, not websites.
• Earned media fuels trust.
• Visibility requires more than SEO.
• Content needs structure and depth.
• Experts must sound more human.
• Trust wins in the AI era.
• Gated content may be holding you back.

For years, healthcare marketers focused on helping people find content. Today’s large language models (LLMs) are increasingly bypassing that step entirely.

Patients and healthcare consumers are asking conversational questions and receiving direct responses from AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. As Ivan noted during our conversation, these systems meet people where they are, responding in the same natural language they use to ask questions. That means brands must rethink how they create content and start answering real-world questions the way real people ask them.

If AI is the new gatekeeper, earned media is becoming one of its most important trust signals.

LLMs pull information from across the web, but they tend to place greater weight on credible sources, expert voices, and reputable publications. Ivan and I touched on how healthcare PR now serves as a critical filter for truth. Media coverage featuring respected clinicians, researchers, and executives helps establish authority and increases the likelihood that trusted information is surfaced when people seek answers online.

Many organizations assume strong SEO automatically translates into AI visibility. Increasingly, that’s not the case.

One of the first recommendations Ivan told me that he recommends to his clients is conducting an AI visibility audit. He told me that organizations are often surprised to discover they have little to no presence across major LLMs despite ranking well in traditional search. The reason is simple: AI systems reward expertise, depth, authority, and relevance, not just keywords.

Another key shift is how content is organized.

Healthcare marketers have long been trained to create concise web copy, but AI systems are looking for both clarity and depth. Ivan recommends structuring content with clear headlines, summaries, and easy-to-scan formats while also providing deeper layers of information for those who want to explore further.

His advice? Every page should have a “double click.” A visitor should be able to quickly understand the basics and then access richer, more authoritative content beneath the surface.

Perhaps the most important takeaway from the discussion was the need to elevate expert voices.

Whether it’s medical leaders, researchers, executives, or clinicians, organizations need to help their experts communicate in ways that are approachable and conversational. Patients don’t want a 75-page PDF. They want someone to explain a complex issue in language they can understand.

As AI continues to reshape healthcare information discovery, the organizations that build trust through authentic expertise, accessible content, and credible earned media will be the ones that stand out.

Learn more and connect with the FINN Partners team:

• Ivan Ruiz: ivan.ruiz@finnpartners.com
• Andrea Delafield: andrea.delafield@finnpartners.com
• FINN Partners: www.finnpartners.com

Are you keeping your brand awareness and lead generation efforts separate? Treating these as isolated marketing initiatives is a great way to waste your best content. Swaay.Health sits down with Mary Tindall, Founder and Principal, and Patricia Chaney, Content Lead at Calliope Communications. They detail how to use your top thought leadership assets to actively generate qualified leads. You will discover how to turn existing sales education into anchor content and why a real distribution plan is critical for B2B healthcare success.

Rebranding an established company carries risk. Get it wrong and you throw away years of brand equity. Brandy Kline, VP of Marketing at Greenway Health, sits down with Swaay.Health to share the exact strategy behind their recent corporate refresh and the launch of their Novare platform. We cover the mechanics of updating a legacy visual identity, the absolute necessity of internal change management, and the process of designing a new booth for the HIMSS floor. Marketers will see how to modernize a presence without abandoning deep clinical trust.

It is incredibly easy to fall into the trap of plastering clinical rankings across a billboard or relying on standard hospital tropes. This is the “marketing sin” of pride and it can derail your marketing efforts. The reality is that patients crave empathy and clear communication over a list of corporate trophies. Christian Barnett, Group Lead Strategy and Creative at Unlock Health, sat down with Swaay.Health at #MASHSMD26 in full dandy-devil costume to break down the seven deadly sins of healthcare marketing. We discuss why "Pride" and "Gluttony" quietly sabotage patient trust and how marketers can reposition their campaigns to drive real behavioral change.

To date, healthcare podcasts have lacked the rigorous oversight of traditional medical print media. It is not possible for listeners to separating verified clinical facts from casual edutainment. That may be changing.

Todd Eury, Founder of the Pharmacy Podcast Network, joins Swaay.Health to discuss his plan for evidence-based podcasting. We explore how his team applies strict peer-review workflows and real-time AI reference tracking to audio content. Healthcare marketers will learn why this development is one to keep an eye on.

You spent weeks perfecting a pitch packed with undeniable data and ROI calculations. So why did the prospect just tell you they need to think it over? Answer: You brought logic to an emotional fight.

Henry DeVries, CEO and Acquisitions Editor at Indie Books International, sits down to explain the science behind this common frustration. He breaks down why facts and figures trigger the analytical part of the brain while two-minute stories activate the decision-making center. We discuss how to drop the boring case study and use a simple narrative framework to win B2B healthcare deals.

Wading through a sea of generic B2B pitches to find a marketing partner who actually understands the nuances of healthcare is exhausting. When your team is already stretched thin, you don't have time for a trial-and-error discovery process. Here is how one trusted community resource is stepping up to hit the easy button for provider organizations.

Swaay.Health sat down with Cessna to learn more about his vision for the platform and how he and Huth plan to, as he stated, "take this platform to the next level".

It turns out that the antidote to a year of shrinking budgets and endless algorithm updates is a healthy dose of community. As organizers we expected a lot of conversations about AI, budget cuts, doing more with less, but what we got instead was connection magic. Swaay.Health LIVE 2026 may have wrapped up a few weeks ago, but the team is still recovering (and buzzing) from the event. During that time a flood of reactions from attendees came in. Were our reactions similar? Brittany Quemby, John Lynn, and I compare notes…and the answer is yes!

Healthcare marketers love facts. We want to tell patients exactly why our facilities are the best and our doctors are the smartest. But relying on pure logic is costing you appointments. Behavioral science proves that medical decisions are driven by fear, anxiety, and hope, not just statistics. If your digital strategy ignores the human element, you are losing high-intent visitors to competitors who understand the power of empathy. Swaay.Health sat down with Dan Greenwald, CEO and Chief Creative Officer at White Rhino. We discussed the psychological barriers preventing patients from taking action and how marketers must adapt digital experiences to match a patient's actual emotional state.

Healthcare marketers spend months producing beautiful patient stories. We secure the budget, navigate legal reviews, and finally publish the video. Then crickets… Are we missing something? Yes we are. There is a whole channel for these types of stories hardly anyone thinks about – but if you do, it’ll change the way you create your video stories.

Swaay.Health sat down with Cameron Kit, Founder of YOYOS, to discuss a different approach to video storytelling. Kit challenges the standard corporate video playbook. She reveals how treating patient narratives like documentary films can dramatically extend their shelf life and deepen audience connection.

What Stood Out From This Conversation

• Film festivals as a PR engine. Submitting patient documentaries to local film festivals creates ongoing visibility long after the initial launch. Marketers get the benefit of a live event without the headache of hosting it.
• Specificity beats generalization. It is tempting to make a patient story broad so more people can relate to it. However, hyper-specific details are what actually forge a connection and make the narrative memorable.
• Co-create instead of extracting. Marketers often approach interviews with a predetermined angle. Asking the patient what they want to highlight changes the focus and results in a far more authentic story.

Most marketing videos have a tragically short lifespan. They get a surge of traffic at launch and then quietly fade into the background of an organization’s YouTube channel.

Kit suggests a completely different distribution model. By crafting a story about the disease and the patient rather than the product, organizations can submit these videos to film festivals.

She noted that getting accepted into a festival months later creates new opportunities for social posts and PR. “The best part is you don’t have to run the event,” added Kit. “You’re not hosting a gala.”

Using film festivals gives these videos a life beyond the launch and puts your brand in front of a captive audience with minimal logistical effort.

When trying to reach a wide audience, the instinct is to water down the details. Why? Because we assume that a story about someone dealing with a specific condition (ie: sickle cell or an autoimmune disease) will not resonate with a broad audience. So we opt for the safe route of generalizing the story and glossing over the details.

Kit argues the exact opposite. Broad statements lack the emotional hooks that keep audiences engaged.

“The weird thing is when you let go of that [broad appeal] and go hyper-specific, audiences end up finding ways to relate to the piece,” said Kit. “When you go specific to a person’s journey, your brain will find ways to relate.”

According to Kit, Marketers typically walk into a video shoot with a completed storyboard. They know what messages need to be delivered and exactly what soundbites they want to capture.

This rigid approach often stifles the real story. Kit recommends throwing out the script and building the narrative alongside the patient.

“It’s really easy for me and for anyone in marketing to get stuck in the mindset of THIS is the  story needs to be told,” Kit admitted.

She recalled a project where the client explicitly wanted a sad, tear-jerking video about sickle cell disease. Kit asked the patient what she wanted to focus on instead. “Black joy was the surprising answer,” Kit remembered.

By letting the patient guide the theme, the final product was authentic, memorable, and highly successful.

Patient stories are powerful marketing assets – no matter if you are a provider, a medical device company, a payer, a life-sciences organization, or even a Health IT vendor. But creating an effective patient story requires more than good lighting and a solid script. It requires a willingness to let your patient partner guide the narrative and a commitment to preserving the specific details of their journey. Oh, and being open to entirely new avenues for distribution. Treating these projects as films rather than commercials ensures they resonate with audiences and maintain their value long after the initial upload.

How do you submit a healthcare video to a film festival? The process is straightforward and typically managed through platforms like FilmFreeway.  Marketers simply create a project page, upload the video, and pay a submission fee to relevant local or niche festivals. Writing a personalized letter explaining that the subject is local and will attend the screening can significantly increase the chances of acceptance.

Does a film festival strategy work for promotional product videos? No. Film festivals are looking for narrative stories, not advertisements. The product or service must fade into the background while the patient and their journey take center stage. If the video feels like a commercial or explicitly pitches a service, it will be rejected by festival programmers.

Why is specificity important in patient stories? Hyper-specific details create a stronger emotional anchor for the audience. While general statements are easy to ignore, distinct memories, sensory details, and exact quotes force our brains to engage. This level of detail helps viewers empathize with the patient’s struggle, making the story memorable and shareable.

Learn more about YOYOS at https://www.yoyos.ai/

I’m always fascinated by many of the healthcare marketing nuances that exist in healthcare organizations. This is particularly true when it comes to the differences between small and large healthcare organizations. In many cases, the smaller organizations are just doing everything they can to survive. The larger organizations on the other hand are very brand conscious and go to great lengths to make sure that their marketing efforts match the brand that their patients and customers expect.

This idea became really apparent to me when I sat down to chat with Mary Sadlier, President at (add)ventures. Sadlier has a fascinating background that spans working at a large advisory company, working at a community-based health system, and now at a healthcare marketing agency. This made for a fascinating conversation that spanned the full gamut of healthcare marketing with a specific deep dive into their virtual production studio.

Starting off the discussion, I ask Sadlier to share some of the hurdles that big healthcare brands are facing since (add)ventures works with a lot of big healthcare players like CVS Health and Baxter for example. Sadlier shared with us some of the unique challenges that global healthcare companies face and her team and her help them navigate those challenges. One that stood out to me was what it takes to make culturally appropriate videos that worked in various nations and languages. Not an easy task, but one that must be done to market to patients effectively.

One of the solutions that Sadlier shared was (add)ventures’ investment in creating a virtual production studio that they could adapt and change according to the needs of the brand they’re working to feature. She observed that by having a full production studio you can easily swap out elements in the studio to make them work better for different audiences as opposed to having to move your production to different locations. Plus, it was great to hear how the virtual production studio allows their clients to see a full preview of what the video will look like before they even start shooting. This is something you can’t really do if you are recording video on location somewhere.

We also dove in with Sadlier on how she and her team balance the need to be efficient, but still maintain authenticity in these virtual productions. She shared that there are some things you can’t really do in a virtual production because they wouldn’t be authentic. For example, you may need to go and do video of the actual hospital or care center in a specific location in order to not lose the viewers’ trust.

The industry is evolving quickly and it’s great to see organizations like (add)ventures making investments that help healthcare organizations be able to lower their costs to film high-quality video that’s authentic and impactful.

Check out our full interview with Mary Sadlier to learn more about (add)ventures’ virtual production studio and how healthcare marketing leaders can work more efficiently and effectively.

Learn more about (add)ventures: https://www.addventures.com/

(add)ventures is a sponsor of Healthcare Scene

Mara Baer, a chronic pain advocate, published author, and founder of AgoHealth, recently sat down for an interview with Swaay.Health to discuss the critical nuances of communicating with individuals living with chronic pain. During the conversation, Baer shed light on the hidden realities of the condition and shared actionable strategies for healthcare marketers to improve messaging, visual imagery, and overall patient engagement.

Core Insight: To build authentic trust with the one in five Americans living with chronic pain, healthcare marketers must:

• Abandon acute pain messaging (acute pain and chronic pain are NOT the same)
• Stop using generic stock imagery depicting people in pain
• Use better terminology: people living with chronic pain vs suffering from chronic pain
• Recognize patients as whole people and expert partners in their own care

A significant disconnect exists between how marketers depict pain and how patients experience it. Marketers often default to visual cliches such as an individual holding their back while in discomfort or a construction worker grimacing on the job. These images depict acute and sudden pain rather than chronic pain.

Chronic pain is largely an invisible challenge, and individuals are constantly adapting and striving to maintain high functionality in their daily lives despite it. Baer emphasized the need for imagery that reflects this reality: “Showing imagery that shows people doing their best to function versus being put down by their condition, that can go a long way,”

Furthermore, word choice is critical when addressing this demographic. Using terms like “living with chronic pain” instead of “chronic pain sufferer” honors the individual’s humanity and helps reduce stigma. “The idea that we talk about people as the person with the lived experience of chronic pain versus identifying them as their condition can go a long way for people to feel I’m a human being beyond my condition,” Baer explained.

Baer strongly advocates that healthcare marketers create campaigns that move away from portraying patients as passive recipients on the sidelines and toward treating them as active, respected partners in their care journey. This requires abandoning unrealistic “before and after” cure narratives and instead acknowledging the complex, holistic impact of chronic pain, including its significant toll on mental health.

Patients with chronic pain are four to five times more likely to experience anxiety and depression, requiring a deeply empathetic and honest communication approach. To get this right, healthcare marketers must involve individuals with lived experience directly in the design of campaigns to ensure the stories are accurate and resonant. As Baer stated, “When it’s done right, you will know because patients will feel recognized and rather than marketed to… you’ll see stronger engagement.”

Are our marketing assets perpetuating the stigma of chronic pain by using acute pain stereotypes? Marketing leaders must audit their visual and written assets to ensure they do not reduce individuals to their condition or rely on exaggerated depictions of suffering. Campaigns should be evaluated on whether they show realistic adaptations and individuals striving to function normally, rather than just the immediate physical manifestation of an acute injury.

How can we incorporate empathy into our patient storytelling and service line campaigns? Moving forward, marketing and patient experience teams need to establish formal mechanisms for co-creating content with patients who have lived experiences. This involves soliciting direct feedback during the creative process to ensure narratives do not oversimplify the journey or falsely promise magical cures, but instead validate the deep emotional and relational impacts of chronic health challenges.

Learn more about AgoHealth at https://www.agohealth.com/

The acquisition of Cardinal Digital Marketing by Power Digital Marketing was big news.

Jeff Mason, CEO at Power Digital, graciously agreed to join me on camera to talk about healthcare and their recent acquisition. He shared why they made the leap into healthcare and how they plan to operate Cardinal moving forward.

Core Insight: Healthcare marketing is hitting the exact same data-driven inflection point that retail did a decade ago, moving from fragmented, brand-led efforts to full-funnel performance and strict attribution.

Healthcare isn’t just another vertical to Power Digital. It is a necessity that grows regardless of how the economy performs – unlike other industries. Because healthcare is almost a $5 trillion business, Power Digital saw it as a massive, recession-proof market to move into.

In addition, healthcare finally seemed open to new marketing techniques.

“We believe healthcare is at the same inflection point that retail was about a decade ago,” shared Mason. “I would say the inflection point is the result of growing patient demand that has increased the need for marketing sophistication.”

According to Mason, as agencies grow, they tend to become generalized and lose the narrow focus that made them successful in the early days. Power Digital wanted to avoid that generalization trap.

“The strategy of what Cardinal is doing is not going to change,” stated Mason. “They’re the best healthcare advertisers on the planet, in my opinion”.

Cardinal brings the deep, nuanced expertise in healthcare, particularly with MSOs and provider groups. What Power Digital adds to the mix is the technology backbone for data analytics and full-funnel measurement.

By combining forces, they can provide the attribution and measurement layer that is becoming table stakes in healthcare.

Are we ready to defend our healthcare marketing spend with retail-level attribution? The grace period for untracked brand spending in healthcare is closing. Executive leadership teams, much like their retail counterparts a decade ago, are now demanding to see patient acquisition costs and demonstrated lifetime value (LTV). Healthcare marketing leaders must evaluate if their current data infrastructure can trace a patient’s journey from an initial online search all the way to the exam room chair. If not, upgrading that data backbone needs to be the next major priority to justify future marketing investments.

Does our agency truly understand the nuances of the patient journey? As large agency networks consolidate, many offer generalized digital marketing services that fail to grasp the complexities of the healthcare industry. CMOs should be critically assessing whether their partners have deep, demonstrated expertise in healthcare, or if they are simply applying a generic consumer playbook. Specialization is a requirement to build trust and navigate the complexities around retargeting, patient information, and HIPAA regulations.

Learn more about Power Digital at https://powerdigitalmarketing.com/

Learn more Cardinal Digital Marketing at https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/

Healthcare marketers spend thousands of dollars producing videos, only to watch engagement metrics flatline. Why? Because the audience is likely watching while answering emails in another browser tab. Keeping audience attention means a whole new approach to visual storytelling.

Swaay.Health sat down with Dustin Schultz, Executive Producer at Union Productions, to discuss the realities of modern video marketing. The conversation explored how aligning production styles with distribution channels and embracing the distractions of the modern buyer can keep audiences engaged.

• Match production to platform. Slicing a polished brand video into short clips does not guarantee social media success. Marketers must tailor the creative story and production quality to the specific channel.
• Use story loops to hold attention. B2B videos still need tension to keep audience attention. Presenting an unspoken question triggers human curiosity and keeps multitasking executives hooked until the end.
• Design for the “other tab” reality. Viewers are highly distracted, often listening while working in a different browser window. Creating content that anticipates this behavior helps pull their eyes back to the screen.

It seems very logical and practical to take a video you filmed and cut it into 30-second segments for social media. According to Schultz, this approach ignores the reality of how different platforms operate.

“Making the right type of video for your channel is a critical best practice,” advised Schultz. “The production that is for an OTT or CTV placements needs a premium look which is not want someone wants to engaged with on TikTok.”

In other words, painting with the same brush across all channels is a recipe for poor performance.

In the B2B world, buyers usually know your product is the ultimate punchline of the video. However, that does not mean you can abandon narrative tension.

“Tension creates dynamic,” said Schultz. “Even though you’re on the company’s website or social media channel, and you know the solution is their product, there should still be a little curiosity/tension as to whether they will solve the problem.”

To create tension, Schultz recommends using story loops – think story-within-a-story. Each of these loops should have an element of tension or a nemesis/challenge to overcome. This tension keeps the audience interested and multiple loops in a single video addresses the short attention spans of modern viewers.

Speaking of modern viewers, today’s audience is likely listening to your video while digging through their inbox in a separate window. Instead of fighting this distracted reality, Schultz urges video creators to lean into it.

To combat this Schultz suggests using verbal repetition or sudden audio cues to break through the noise: “Don’t be afraid to say ‘Hey, I’m over here on the other tab’ – that’s an interesting way to breakthrough and could help you draw someone back in.”

Repeating a point also helps to engage distracted viewers. When we hear something a second time, our brains “perk up” when it senses something is important.

Creating an effective video requires more than a high definition camera and a script. It requires a deep understanding of where the video will live and how the audience will actually consume it. When marketers respect the platform and acknowledge the distractions of their viewers, they move from simply creating content and start telling stories that stick.

How do story loops improve B2B video engagement? Story loops introduce narrative tension by presenting an unspoken question or problem early in the video. Even when the audience knows the company’s product is the ultimate solution, this technique taps into human curiosity. Viewers naturally want to see exactly how the problem is resolved, which keeps them watching longer.

Why do high production videos perform poorly on social media? Social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram prioritize authentic, raw content over highly polished corporate productions. Taking an expensive, documentary style brand film and slicing it into shorter clips usually feels out of place on these channels. Videos must match the specific visual expectations and user behavior of the platform where they are posted.

How can videos capture attention when viewers are multitasking? Viewers frequently listen to videos while working in another browser tab. Marketers can pull attention back to the screen by using specific audio cues, distinct typography for muted environments, or sudden visual shifts. Acknowledging the distraction directly in the audio can also act as a breakthrough moment that reengages the audience.

Learn more about Union Productions at https://www.theunionproductions.com/

Every healthcare organization says they want to change patient behavior, but flooding people with more texts and emails is not effective. Driving true engagement takes an understanding of behavioral economics. Karen Sussman Horgan, CEO and Co-founder of VAL Health, recently sat down with Swaay.Health to discuss how applying boutique behavioral science helps health systems and payers double screening rates by leaning into the irrational nature of human behavior.

Core Insight: Healthcare consumers don’t need more facts; they need strategic nudges that overcome innate human inertia and present bias to inspire healthier choices.

Healthcare organizations often assume patients will act purely on logic, but simply providing clinical facts isn’t enough to overcome our natural biases. Instead of fighting human nature, VAL Health harnesses it to drive better outcomes.

“Behavioral science recognizes that as a human, you’re irrational,” shared Horgan. “Healthcare systems are really good at just giving you facts, but it’s so easy to push that off to the future. It’s hard for people to anticipate the future. What we do instead, is bring the impact back to the present.”

“At Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, we achieved a 15% reduction in no-show,” said Horgan. “We did that by bringing in social proof. We told them, nine out of 10 people show up for their appointments.”

That minor tweak to the language of the reminder yielded the significant increase in patients showing up on time for their appointments.

How can we integrate behavioral science into our existing AI and marketing automation tools? Marketing leaders should evaluate their current AI investments to ensure they are not simply increasing the frequency of generic communications. Instead of just sending more automated reminders, teams need to weave principles like social proof, loss aversion, and exclusivity into their AI-generated messaging. This approach ensures the technology actually nudges patients toward healthier decisions rather than just bombarding them with easily ignored facts.

Are we measuring the right engagement metrics to identify where behavioral nudges are needed? If digital marketing campaigns and patient portals have hit a plateau in conversion rates, it is time to look beyond standard open and click-through metrics. Marketing and patient experience executives should audit their communication touchpoints to identify where patients are stalling due to friction or choice overload. By pinpointing these drop-off areas, teams can strategically deploy low-cost behavioral interventions, like simplifying choices or reframing the call to action, to reignite engagement without needing a massive budget increase.

Learn more about VAL Health at https://valhealth.com/

Not only are patients and customers rapidly depending on artificial intelligence for answers to health questions; AI also underpins conventional web searches more and more. Many readers of this site are experiencing the shift for themselves, and it is confirmed by the observations of Jorge Fimbres, Digital Marketing Director at Envision Health.

The immense consequences of this shift are explored in our recent interview by Fimbres along with, Tim J. Busche, Co-Founder, President, and CEO, and Kelley O. Smith, Chief Clinical Officer. They point out that each organization is responsible to ensure the information about them in AI and web searches is accurate.

More than that, search results must be readable and relevant. No “marketing babble” or “mumbo jumbo” related to compliance, Smith says. A patient trying to understand what the doctor is saying or doing should get what they need: what to expect when they go in the hospital, for instance.

What must an organization do to adapt to the new search expectations. Busche summarizes the approach as a “deep understanding” of what the organization is doing—no fluff. He recommends always consulting clinicians.

Fimbres talks about understanding exactly what you do and why users should care. Understand your audiences, their pain points, and what topics they’re asking about; “real solutions,” he says, and “also support a deeper dive.”

The path to better search results starts deciding on a strategy. Busche calls on organizations to set clear objectives and then find low-hanging fruit. Smith suggests starting where people are searching the most, and where the information is most important to them; perhaps the oncology or cardiology departments.

Busche discussed how Envision Health used the techniques they propound in updating their own web site. They wanted to show clients the results they obtained, to prove they have a winning approach. How can you trust an agency that hasn’t proven it works for themselves? The update also had to update some big recent strategic shifts, including the addition of direct-to-consumer services to their B2B strategy.

To share more of their experience and knowledge on this subject, Envision Health recently published an eBook sharing how you can “Turn AI into your website’s superpower.”  Be sure to download the free eBook to learn more.

And the update is not “set it and forget it”—they plan to keep improving over time, and advise clients to do the same.

Check out our video interview with Envision Health to learn more about optimizing for new AI search.

Learn more about Envision Health: https://www.envisionmarketingpr.com/

Envision is a sponsor of Healthcare Scene

Healthcare conferences are a whirlwind of early mornings, long days, and late-night conversations—exhilarating, exhausting, and often incredibly valuable all at once.

In our recent episode of the Swaay.Health Podcast, I sat down with Amy Oliver, Founder of Azul Heart and longtime Swaay community member, to talk about the real story behind conferences and spill a little industry tea: what actually works, the red flags to avoid, and the truths marketers whisper about after the show floor closes.

Key highlights:

• ☕ Conferences aren’t a lead vending machine. Relationships first, pipeline later.

• 🎪 Big booths and swag don’t win events—great conversations do.

• 🎯 The companies that win events show up with intention.

• 🤝 The best connections often happen after the exhibit hall closes.

• 👀 The real ROI usually shows up months after the conference.

• 🔁 The magic isn’t the booth—it’s the follow-up.

Curious about our full conversation (and all the conference tea🍵)? Check out the video below for the full discussion.

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Truth 1: Conferences Don’t Generate Pipeline Overnight

One of the biggest misconceptions about events is that they should instantly generate deals.

Amy pointed out that conferences aren’t a “vending machine for warm leads.” In healthcare, where buying cycles are long and trust is critical, events are better understood as trust accelerators. They create opportunities to meet people face-to-face, continue conversations from previous events, and strengthen relationships that eventually lead to business.

That means success isn’t about the number of badge scans. It’s about whether the right conversations happened and whether those relationships continue afterward.

Truth 2: Intentionality Beats Booth Size

Another common mistake we talked about was how companies make assume that a bigger booth or more swag will translate into better results.

Instead, Amy emphasized the importance of intentional planning. The most successful teams go into events with clear goals:

• Who do we want to meet?
• How will we connect with them?
• What follow-up will happen after the event?

Sometimes the best move isn’t sponsoring at all, it’s simply attending, scheduling meetings, and evaluating whether the audience aligns with your ideal customer profile.

Truth 3: The Real Magic Happens After the Exhibit Hall

While sessions and booths are important, the most meaningful conference moments often happen elsewhere.

Think evening conversations after a long day on the show floor. Unexpected hallway run-ins. Deep conversations that move beyond small talk and into real challenges and ideas.

Those moments are where trust forms and where the long-term relationships that drive healthcare marketing are built. At the end of the day, it’s about the people.

For both of us, the biggest takeaway was simple: conferences matter because of the people.

They bring together a community of professionals navigating similar challenges and trying to move healthcare forward. And sometimes, one meaningful conversation can be worth the entire trip.

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Is it fair that healthcare organizations prefer to do business with agencies and individuals exclusively focused on this industry? That depends on whether you have recently lost a healthcare opportunity. For Amsive, this moment became a catalyst for launching a specialized brand.

Craig Blake, Agency Growth at Amsive, joined Swaay.Health to discuss the launch of Amsive Health and what it reveals about how healthcare organizations choose partners today.

What This Conversation Revealed

• Specialization often ranks above prior success and logos when healthcare buyers evaluate vendors
• Marketing remains essential to growth yet is still treated like a discretionary cost

The launch of Amsive Health did not start as a brand exercise. It started with a missed opportunity.

“You lose a deal and they say to you – ‘you’re not healthcare enough’. Well that’s enough to make you go, it’s time,” Blake explained. “Healthcare likes to work with healthcare.”

Healthcare organizations operate in a space shaped by regulation, risk, and public trust. It makes sense that they prefer partners who already understand the environment rather than those who need to learn it mid-engagement.

Blake framed Amsive Health as a signal of commitment to the category rather than a structural separation from the parent organization.

“You can dabble and grow it to a point, but if you’re looking to take that next level, you need to have an outward facing healthcare presence.”

Going forward, that presence will be front and center at conferences and in market conversations.

Given Amsive Health’s work across providers and plans, we asked Blake what pressure he sees most often from healthcare marketing teams.

One stood out.

Marketers are responsible for growth, yet they remain under constant pressure to justify their existence.

“I think marketers in healthcare have the hardest job possible because it’s so critical to drive new patients and new members,” said Blake. “Marketing is also always first criticized as being unnecessary and an expense. That’s a tough place to live.”

That tension is not new, but current cost pressures mean that more marketers are feeling it more acutely. Some teams are being pushed to cut staff, pause promising initiatives, and revert to rinse-and-repeat tactics judged solely on near-term financial return.

Blake believes credibility with leadership should be a core strategy for healthcare marketers. Small wins, operational transparency, and consistent execution can help rebuild internal trust.

Credibility comes from focus. Externally, a clear commitment to healthcare opens doors, and internally, a steady focus on results is what earns marketing the trust it needs to last.

How do we prove our healthcare credibility?
Healthcare buyers often filter partners based on perceived specialization, not just past performance. That means marketers and agencies need visible signals of focus, whether through positioning, partnerships, or consistent category presence, long before the RFP stage.

What does “focus” actually look like in a crowded healthcare agency market?
Focus is less about narrowing services and more about demonstrating understanding of healthcare’s operating environment. Leaders are prioritizing clarity in positioning, disciplined execution, and internal alignment so that credibility builds over time rather than needing to be re-earned with every initiative.

How can marketing protect its budget when leadership is focused on cost reduction?
Marketing teams are being asked to defend spend in organizations under financial strain. The leaders who retain influence are the ones tying initiatives to measurable growth, communicating progress frequently, and showing how marketing activity connects to operational outcomes.

Learn more about Amsive Health at https://health.amsive.com/

If a health IT company is sending different messages in its materials (technical and marketing) or through its sales team, clients will have trouble trusting the company or even knowing whether its solution is relevant to them. If customers’ online research turns up a different focus from what the company is saying in sales and marketing, that too is a big problem.

fuoco helps healthcare firms coordinate their messaging, content and data across departments and media channels and optimize them for AI search engines, an approach they call “Media Engine Optimization” or MEO. We recently sat down with fuoco’s founder and chief firestarter Kriste Goad to learn more about their unique perspective on extreme client collaboration, busting marketing silos, and how to help healthcare IT companies not get left behind.

She points out that there are more sources of data and more online channels for messaging, than ever, so coordination becomes both more difficult and more critical. The AI searches conducted by potential clients complicate the scene even further—and like search engine optimization, “No one has it totally figured out yet.”

In an environment where everybody is seeking information online, the old cliché “Content is king” takes on even greater force. Goad praises “brand journalism” where a company presents information about itself in more editorial, less salesy ways, helping customers see themselves in the stories being told and the impact being delivered.

Too often, marketing efforts are siloed and even “a bit chaotic,” and some companies depend on canned advice from experts that doesn’t tie in with the company’s specific needs. fuoco offers help with individual marketing efforts and channels, but concentrates on strategies that include and inform the full marketing spectrum. Their clientele tend to be companies poised in the gap between start-ups and the major companies with big budgets. Goad discusses how to make the most of the budget you have.

Check out our video interview with Kriste Goad from fuoco to learn more about creating a holistic approach to your healthcare B2B marketing.

Learn more about fuoco: https://growwithfuoco.com/

fuoco is a sponsor of Healthcare Scene

Healthcare marketers want clinicians and subject matter experts front and center. But when it’s time to involve them, calendars fill up and responsibility gets passed around. One organization stepped back, rethought how SME engagement actually works, and now has a waiting list of experts eager to contribute.

This conversation brings together Alexandria Diaz, VP of Marketing at Ventra Health, and Marnie Hayutin, Founder & CEO of Writing.Health. They share how clear expectations, visible outcomes, and real collaboration turn SME participation from a struggle into a system.

What This Conversation Revealed

• SME engagement breaks down when marketing treats their time as assumed instead of earned
• Collaboration works better when strategy and storytelling happen in the same room
• Experts participate more when they can see what their contribution becomes

For Diaz and Hayutin, SME engagement starts with expectations set early and made explicit.

“I set expectations as far in advance as possible,” Diaz explained. “I let them know exactly how much time is required of them – from the interview to the review process or whatever else is needed. I don’t want surprises along the way.”

Clear expectations are reinforced by Ventra Health’s internal culture.

“Ventra Health has a culture of respect that is quite remarkable,” Hayutin noted. “If they sign on to do something, they work together to get it done.”

That respect extends to marketing work as well.

“Our people are always willing to share,” added Diaz.

Rather than treating interviews as a handoff or extraction exercise, Ventra brings marketing and writing into the same conversation from the start.

“We do the interviews jointly,” Diaz said. “That helps a lot. We don’t do our own thing and then throw it over the fence to our writing partners. It’s a collaborative process. We’re in the calls together. We’re asking the questions together.”

Hayutin sees the downstream impact immediately: “Doing it together means we cover the topic faster. It’s very efficient. There’s no rework. There are no additional questions that we should have asked.”

Bringing everyone together, and coming prepared. respects the SME’s time and expertise. The interview becomes one-and-done. Less cleanup. Less rework.

At many organizations, SME effort disappears into a black box. Over time, that silence erodes willingness to participate again.

Diaz was direct about what changes that dynamic: “Sometimes you have to show your value before people can appreciate it. If you give 30 minutes of time today, there will be this fantastic blog six weeks from now, and you’ll get all the praise for it.”

“Promote the outcome so people understand it’s not just a blog,” Hayutin added. “Show how it fits into the overall plan and what they’re contributing to.”

Closing that loop turns content from an abstract ask into a visible return.

On paper, this all sounds straightforward: be clear with expectations, collaborate early, and close the loop so experts can see what their time actually produced. In practice, very few healthcare marketing teams do all three consistently.

Instead of treating expertise like a tradable asset, Diaz and Hayutin approach SMEs as true partners. Showing up together for interviews sends a simple but powerful signal: your time matters, and so does your perspective.

That approach explains why, at Ventra Health, clinicians and subject matter experts aren’t being chased for content, they’re lining up to contribute.

———

How do we get clinicians and SMEs to engage without constantly chasing them?
Sustained engagement breaks down when participation feels open-ended or disconnected from outcomes. Clear expectations, visible results, and respectful use of time are key to engagement, not repeated reminders.

What’s the most common mistake marketing teams make when working with internal experts?
Many teams treat expertise as something they can tap on demand, rather than something that needs to be earned and maintained. When experts don’t see how their input is used, trust erodes and participation drops.

Where does SME collaboration typically fall apart in healthcare organizations?
Breakdowns often happen between interviews and publication, when context is lost or follow-up is inconsistent. That is “collaboration friction” and makes future participation less likely, even when the content itself performs well.

Learn more about Ventra Health at https://ventrahealth.com/

Learn more about Writing.Health at https://www.writing.health/

Writing.Health is a sponsor of Healthcare Scene

Healthcare websites are not dying. They are just evolving from the job they have been doing for the past decade.

The idea that websites are soon to be obsolete is more about click-bait rather than true marketing insight. For healthcare marketers, websites will continue to be an important anchor point for campaigns, for access, and for knowledge. It just may not be the ultimate destination for people seeking quick answers.

Swaay.Health sat down with Ahava Leibtag, CEO of Aha Media Group to dive deeper on this topic and to discuss their Healthcare Marketing in 2026: Key Trends & Takeaways Report.

Declaring websites “dead” is all about provoking a response. Leibtag was blunt about the narrative itself: “I think some of the thought leaders in the space are using that line to get attention, and I don’t particularly find that kind of language useful. I would prefer for people to say, websites are evolving and you need to pay attention.”

That evolution is being driven the rapid rise of AI-powered search through platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

Search is no longer delivering visitor volumes the way it once did, but that is no reason to give up on websites. There are still many important reasons healthcare still needs websites.

According to Leibtag, providing accurate health information to the community, being a hub of personal health information, and the place to access care still matters.

So where are healthcare websites headed if not the scrap heap?

Leibtag provided a clear answer: “People are coming to [your website] to transact. You need to show them they can trust you.” That starts with providing as much information about your services and facilities as possible.

“I recently had an experience with a family member where we had to stay in the hospital for five days,” Leibtag shared. “I wanted to understand what amenities the rooms had. There was no information on the hospital website. That made me apprehensive and anxious for my loved one. Detailed things like that help to build trust.”

AI has not killed healthcare websites. It has just removed the excuses for the lack of usability, incomplete information, and poor user experiences.

Websites can no longer hide behind volume or vague storytelling. In this age of AI, websites will now function as proof points for patients. The teams that understand this are quickly moving to evolve their sites to earn trust rather than clicks.

If AI is answering questions before people click, what role should the website actually play now? The website is no longer a discovery engine. It is a validation and transaction layer where patients confirm trust, assess readiness, and decide whether to move forward. That makes accuracy, clarity, and usability operational requirements, not marketing preferences.

How do we know if our website is building trust instead of just looking polished? Trust shows up in whether people can complete tasks without friction and anxiety. Appointment scheduling, clear service information, and practical details often matter more than visual design because they reduce uncertainty at the moment of decision.

Where should marketing teams focus when traffic declines? Fewer visits mean each one carries more weight. Teams are shifting attention from volume metrics to experience quality, content completeness, and coordination with access and operations to ensure the site reflects how patients want their care delivered.

Learn more about Aha Media Group at: https://ahamediagroup.com/

Learn more about Answers with Ahava & Friends at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRdP7v0zff8MOUxC5VWxCiRa-zdcwKk1M

Download the Healthcare Marketing in 2026: Key Trends & Takeaways Report at https://hubs.ly/Q03-bJsS0

We let ChatGPT be the third host

Brittany Quemby and I decided to try something new. We asked ChatGPT what it sees most often from healthcare marketers and then tried to guess the answers ourselves. Think of it as “AI says… and Swaay responds”.

We asked four things: the most overused word, the city people plan events around, the conference they’re researching, and what they’re actually using ChatGPT for.

Brittany and I had a friendly competition to see who was more in tune with ChatGPT.

I expected “workflow”, “clinicians” or “burnout” – they’re everywhere in press pitches, booth copy, and websites. Alas, the most overused word turned out to be “innovative”. It’s a word that everyone loves to use to describe themselves, but as Brittany put it: “It’s a word that really says nothing and if everybody’s innovative, then nobody really is.”

Both Brittany and I were hoping to see less popular cities appear on the list of places that healthcare marketers are searching for when planning their own events. Sadly it was major conference cities like: Las Vegas, Orlando, Chicago, and San Diego that topped ChatGPT’s list.

While the answers were not surprising, we learned something important. We should’ve asked about planning their own events, separate from the big conferences already in those cities. ‘Planning events’ was just too broad.

Something similar happened with our next question, all the usual large conferences showed up: HIMSS and HLTH, but also a few that are specific to healthcare marketing like HCIC, HMPS, and (surprise!) Swaay.Health LIVE.

At first Brittany and I were proud, but after we filmed the video, we started to think that maybe it wasn’t a good thing we appeared on the list. Why? Because if people are turning to ChatGPT to learn more about our event then we have not done a good enough job educating our target audience about it.

The answers to this question were as expected…except for one. Content creation, of course, was the top use-case. Event planning and marketing strategy were also popular, but it was personas that caught us by surprise. Using ChatGPT to help with developing and testing personas is an excellent use of the technology and it was very encouraging to see it as one of the top uses for the platform. I did not think it was something a lot of healthcare marketers were using it for.

I was glad to be wrong.

The biggest takeaway from this fun exercise: prompts matters, but the follow-up thinking matters more.

Any marketer that has been at a startup knows the moment when the founder story that once opened doors and got people excited starts raising eyebrows. What felt authentic and scrappy during the startup phase begins to feel tired and a bit risky when scaling. The challenge is recognizing when founder-centric branding stops being a springboard and becomes an anchor.

Swaay.Health sat down with Sue McCluskey, Partner, and Carey George, Founder and Creative Director, at Goods and Services Branding (G&S Branding) to talk about founder-led branding, founder stories, brand strategy, and what changes as healthcare organizations grow and scale.

What This Conversation Revealed

• Founder-led branding ages faster than most companies plan for
• Strong stories without strategy create momentum—but not resilience
• AI is amplifying the need for visible, human credibility—not replacing it

McCluskey put founder stories and founder-centric branding in context: “It can be an amazing thing, especially if the founder is super charismatic or just embodies the uniqueness of a brand. Where it starts to get risky when it’s a larger organization with more at stake.”

Here’s why.

“When the company becomes publicly traded [or has become a recognized name in their field], if the founder makes a misstep, then there’s a cascading effect of trouble. Shareholders get upset. Board of directors freak out. The public can freak out.”

There is a potential for antics of the founder which were once seen as rebellious or daring to now be seen as reckless or tired. This is amplified in healthcare where audiences are risk-averse and brand credibility is easily damaged by controversy.

George sees many startups, and some scaling companies, confuse brand stories with a brand strategy.

“Most of the time companies come to us and lead with ‘we need a brand story’,” said George. “What we try to tell them is that a brand story is not a strategy. You need a strategy. The brand story is just part of that strategy. Just telling your brand story, just writing your founder’s story isn’t enough. It may win you a pitch competition, but that’s only going to take you so far.”

In the beginning, a company’s origin story and the founder’s journey make for a compelling narrative. Tied up in that narrative are the foundational elements of the company. Everything is aligned and works together. When you are a young startup, these stories may be enough to help generate interest. However, as George points out these are just stories and not a cohesive strategy.

As a company matures a cohesive brand strategy is one of the things that provide separation from young startups. Cohesive brands generate the trust signals that healthcare buyers react favorably to.

Both McCluskey and George both caution against completely jettisoning all elements of founder-centric branding. Why? Because as AI usage in marketing increases, the value of human connection and credibility also increases

“You can publish all the information you want,” explained George. “But you’re going to have to get out into the public. You’re going to have to go to forums, conferences, talk to the media, and be real people in front of the media saying real things. People want to see people live.”

George’s ‘real things’ means more that just the origin story or founder opinions that served a startup company well. However it does not mean completely benching the founder from all public appearances. They can still be a face of the company (ie: not the only face), but they need to diversify their public comments to include meaningful comments on the industry and customers.

Very soon, presence will be a key differentiator.

How do we know when our founder-led brand is starting to create risk instead of trust?
Leaders tend to feel it first through subtle signals: smaller pipelines, longer sales cycles, tougher questions from risk-averse buyers, or internal discomfort about off-script comments.

What replaces the founder story as a brand matures without losing authenticity?
As organizations scale, credibility moves away from who started the company to how consistently the company delivers for customers, partners, and clinicians. Mature brands earn trust through aligned leadership voices, customer proof points, and disciplined messaging—not a single origin narrative.

How should healthcare brands balance human visibility as AI-generated content increases?
Automation makes content easier to produce, but it also raises skepticism. Leaders are realizing that real-world presence through panels, media interviews, and conference presentations has become a critical trust signal that no amount of polished content or origin story can substitute.

Learn more about G&S Branding at https://gsbranding.com/

Website dashboards are looking very different these days. Traffic is down. Once reliable buying signals are fading away. Why? One big reason is the the nature of search is changing and healthcare marketers need to adapt quickly.

Alexis Pratsides, Global Head of Digital at FINN Partners, sat down with Swaay.Health to talk about the rapid evolution of search and what it means for healthcare marketers trying to protect trust, relevance, and demand in a world increasingly moving towards AI-driven discovery.

• The top of the funnel hasn’t collapsed, it relocated outside owned channels
• PR has quietly become a primary input to discoverability, not a supporting one
• Structure now determines visibility more than volume ever did

“What we’re seeing is the top of the funnel is moving off of your website now, and it’s into the LLMs,” explained Pratsides. “All the research and all the activity that people undertake as they are starting out on a journey to do something, that is happening off your site.”

The alarming consequence is that website traffic is dropping for healthcare vendors, precipitously in some cases. However, there is a silver lining.

“Interestingly, the conversion rates are increasing now,” continued Pratsides. “That’s because the traffic that ends up on your website, having already done their research elsewhere, is ready to do something and are highly engaged.”

Your dashboard looks worse at first glance, but if you tune your website for these visitors who are further down the funnel, then your revenue pipeline will be stronger in this new search environment.

“Generative Engine Optimization or GEO is bringing together the disciplines of SEO and Public Relations [PR],” said Pratsides. “You need to be thinking about how they interact and work together to then get visibility bumps within the AI algorithms.”

According to Pratsides, coverage of your customer success stories, executive thought-leadership, and  company announcements, particularly if they are covered by trusted, publications with high authority in healthcare or the general public, can help boost your company and your content to LLMs.

“The LLMs seem to be favoring the really big branded, authoritative places online,” said Pratsides. “These are the media outlets that our PR colleagues are working with every day.”

“We’ve proven with some testing that the LLMs favor really well-structured pages,” revealed Pratsides. “They like bite-sized, digestible chunks of content. So, if you can have a subheading and then a small chunk of content, often that will just get almost entirely cited in the answer to people’s questions on those LLMs.”

For marketers who want their organizations to be cited by LLMs, creating content that is shorter, more structured, and more consumable is a must. It is no longer about keywords, rather it is writing content that matches how people are asking questions of LLMs.

For veteran school healthcare marketers, Pratsides words should be comforting. In this new world of GEO, what matters most is well written content that takes into consideration what the audience is looking for. It also means that getting earned (and paid) media coverage has tremendous value once again.

It’s hard not to chuckle because this is a classic marketing playbook, just modernized for LLMs. Put another way, what was valuable decades ago is just as valid today.

Time to dust off that old playbook.

*Editor’s note: Partsides shared a lot of fantastic insights and recommendations in the interview – too many to include in this written article.

If website traffic is declining, how should marketing teams judge performance without losing credibility internally?
Leaders are being pushed to defend marketing impact while familiar volume metrics weaken. The focus is shifting toward conversion quality, pipeline influence, and downstream outcomes that better reflect how buyers now research and decide.

How do PR and content teams need to change their working model as AI-driven search becomes more influential?
PR is no longer a downstream amplifier. Earned media, executive visibility, and authoritative mentions are becoming primary inputs to discoverability, forcing tighter coordination between communications, digital, and content teams.

What content changes actually improve visibility in AI-driven search without increasing workload?
The biggest gains are coming from clearer structure, tighter sections, and content that mirrors how real questions are asked. Teams are finding that reorganizing existing material often matters more than producing net-new assets.

Learn more about FINN Partners at https://www.finnpartners.com/

FINN Partners is a sponsor of Healthcare Scene.

The healthcare search landscape is changing fast and AI is at the center of it.

As a follow-up to our incredibly popular Search UnWebinar earlier this year, I sat down with Lacey Reichwald, Director of Marketing at Aha Media Group, to unpack some of the biggest questions we didn’t have time to address live. We explored what’s actually driving visibility, traffic, and trust in this new era of search.

From AI-powered search results to the renewed importance of PR and brand consistency, the conversation offers practical guidance for healthcare marketers navigating growing complexity — without burning out or chasing every new trend.

AI-driven search is increasing brand visibility through impressions on search results pages, but that doesn’t always lead to clicks. Structured content like FAQs supports visibility, while human-led thought leadership and real stories are what drive meaningful traffic.

With AI-generated content everywhere, authenticity has become a differentiator. Content rooted in real expertise, human insight, and lived experience performs better with both audiences and search engines.

Third-party credibility is increasingly important as AI tools prioritize trusted sources. Earned media and reputable coverage now play a direct role in search visibility and authority.

Audiences encounter brands across AI tools, search, social, and media, often simultaneously. A strong, consistent brand helps both people and algorithms recognize and trust your organization.

People now “search” across Google, TikTok, YouTube, and AI tools, often without realizing it. Marketers should focus on showing up where their audience already looks, rather than trying to be everywhere.

AI hasn’t replaced strong marketing fundamentals. Tell real stories, build trust, and lead with expertise. The brands that win will focus on clarity, credibility, and connection, not shortcuts.

Missed our live Search UnWebinar session? No worries, find the replay is here.