As HMPS25 approaches, healthcare marketers are facing a pivotal question: How will we leverage powerful technologies while keeping marketing authentically human?
Marketing leaders face a fundamental challenge. While artificial intelligence and data analytics offer unprecedented capabilities to target and personalize content, something essential is at risk of being lost: genuine human connection.
The Data-Empathy Paradox
Healthcare organizations now have access to more patient data than ever before. Yet many struggle to translate this information into marketing that truly resonates with their audiences.
Why? Because data alone doesn’t tell the full story.
“Working with Hailey Sault is like going down the hall to bounce an idea off someone I’ve worked with for years and coming back enlightened and refreshed—but after the first meeting, not years. They deeply listen, ask eye-opening questions, and then listen some more.”
— Jillian Lampert, PhD, Chief Strategy Officer, The Emily Program
The organizations seeing remarkable results—42% increases in patient acquisition, 68% higher engagement, 3.5x ROI—aren’t those with the most data. They’re the ones balancing technological capabilities with deep human understanding.
Four Critical Insights for Healthcare Marketers
1. The Empathy Gap
Most healthcare organizations collect mountains of data but miss the emotional drivers behind patient decisions. In our work with a midwest orthopedic provider, we discovered patients weren’t delaying care due to cost (as the data suggested) but because they feared being told they were “too old” for certain procedures.
Key Question: Are you measuring what truly influences choice?
2. Journey Blind Spots
Critical decision moments often occur long before patients reach your website. For one national eating disorder treatment program, we found the pivotal decision point wasn’t when researching options but much earlier—when patients were alone with intensifying symptoms.
Key Question: Is your marketing arriving too late in the decision process?
3. AI Integration Paradox
The most successful organizations aren’t replacing human elements with AI—they’re enhancing them. One healthcare system achieved a 10x increase in return on ad spend not by automating everything, but by using AI to identify where human-centered messages would have the greatest impact.
Key Question: What’s the right balance of automation and human touch for your audience?
4. The Metrics Mismatch
When engagement metrics look strong but conversion falls short, the disconnection typically happens at a human level. For a specialty clinic experiencing this exact problem, we discovered their clinically accurate content lacked emotional relevance for patients in crisis.
Key Question: What invisible barriers are preventing engaged prospects from becoming patients?
The Path Forward: Human-Centered Design
At HMPS25, we anticipate many discussions about technological innovation in healthcare marketing. Yet the organizations that will thrive in coming years won’t be those with the most advanced technology—they’ll be those that most effectively balance technological capabilities with human understanding.
Human-centered design provides the framework for achieving this balance.
In the second part of this series, we’ll explore the practical implementation of human-centered design in healthcare marketing, including specific methodologies that are transforming patient acquisition and engagement for leading healthcare organizations.
Can’t wait for HMPS25 or Part 2 of our series? See our case studies for implementing human-centered design in your healthcare marketing strategy.
Hailey Sault combines empathy-based design thinking with the scale and optimization of data and artificial intelligence—allowing healthcare organizations to rapidly gain comprehensive patient understanding, create deeply personalized experiences, and continually refine performance through agile iteration.
