The Healthcare Marketing & Physicians Strategies Summit (HMPS26) has always been an exciting convergence of healthcare marketers, digital leaders, physician strategists, and executives. But this year, the tone felt noticeably more grounded and realistic than in previous years.
There was a consistent theme woven throughout the event: Healthcare marketing is at a genuine inflection point, and the pressure to pull ahead and stand out is greater than ever.
Sunday’s opening session, “From Proving Value to Driving Strategy: The New Mandate for Healthcare Marketing Executives,” immediately set the tone for the rest of the conference. It highlighted the mounting pressures healthcare marketing teams are facing. According to the presentation, 68% of CMOs are dealing with budget cuts, while 52% are dealing with staff reductions. At the same time, organizations are still expected to drive growth, engagement, and patient loyalty.
That tension described much of the energy at HMPS26. Marketers are increasingly being challenged to use emerging technologies and data more effectively to connect with audiences, deliver more personalized and meaningful experiences, and help reestablish trust in healthcare—all while functioning as a growth driver for their organization.
Helping healthcare marketers navigate that shift, and identify ways to pivot in a new direction, became one of the defining goals of the conference. Below, we recap some of the biggest conversations, trends, and takeaways our team gathered during our time at HMPS26.
Is the era of AI experimentation over?
Unsurprisingly, AI remained one of the dominant themes throughout HMPS26. But compared to previous years, the conversations were different. No longer were strategy sessions focusing on hypothetical use cases or broad predictions about how AI might reshape healthcare marketing someday.
Instead, the discussion was underscored by confidence and readiness. Everyone has accepted that AI is a gamechanger. Now, the focus was on how organizations can use AI in ways that create measurable value in the here and now.
Across sessions and vendor conversations, AI was consistently framed as an enabler of scale, personalization, operational efficiency, and smarter decision-making—not as a replacement for strategy or human creativity. Healthcare organizations are clearly moving beyond experimentation and beginning to integrate AI directly into existing marketing, physician engagement, and digital experience workflows.
Several recurring applications for AI that surfaced were:
- Predictive referral analytics
- Automating physician engagement workflows
- Smarter audience segmentation and targeting
- AI-assisted content creation and optimization
- CRM orchestration and personalization
Thankfully, the excitement and momentum behind AI have continued to be tempered by a strong undercurrent of caution and responsibility. Many conversations emphasized the importance of governance, compliance, transparency, and maintaining authentic patient communication. As organizations accelerate AI adoption, healthcare leaders are clearly aware that trust can be lost just as quickly as efficiency can be gained.
Growth strategy and marketing are converging
Historically, healthcare strategy teams and marketing teams operate in parallel. Each team may be working toward similar goals, but with different data sources, priorities, and definitions of success.
At HMPS26, it became increasingly clear that those silos are starting to disappear.
The conference itself reflected that shift. Sessions regularly brought together marketing leaders, physician strategists, digital teams, operations leaders, and growth executives to discuss shared challenges around market competition, consumer acquisition, retention, referral integrity, and long-term organizational growth.
The reason? Healthcare growth strategies have become more complex than ever before. To succeed, teams need shared data visibility around insights like referral patterns, consumer behavior (more on that later), patient migration trends, changes in the market, and more.
And with any luck, this evolution will also change how healthcare marketing itself is viewed internally. One of the most impactful sessions we attended was “From Marketer to Enterprise Leader,” which really pushed the idea that marketing is evolving beyond campaigns and lead generation. Today, marketers are expected to think and operate as enterprise growth leaders.
Perhaps the most compelling takeaway from the session was the idea that marketers are uniquely positioned to help solve some of healthcare organizations’ biggest strategic challenges, but only if they can earn a seat at the table. Enterprise thinking is what helps make that possible.
Enterprise thinking requires marketers to expand how they measure success, communicate impact more effectively internally, and frame marketing as a strategic growth function rather than a cost center. In many ways, storytelling itself has become just as important inside the organization as it is outside of it.
Consumer expectations are redefining enterprise strategy
Another major theme throughout HMPS26 was the growing realization that healthcare organizations are no longer simply competing on reputation, geography, or access alone. Increasingly, they are competing on experience.
In multiple sessions and discussions, healthcare leaders emphasized that consumer expectations continue to rise—and they’re being shaped not just by other healthcare organizations, but by the digital experiences people encounter every day in retail, banking, hospitality, and e-commerce. More than ever, patients expect convenience, personalization, transparency, and frictionless interactions at every stage of their healthcare journey.
Conversations repeatedly focused on how organizations are improving:
- Mobile-first experiences
- Online appointment scheduling
- Self-service capabilities
- Omnichannel communications
- Personalized outreach
At the same time, many discussions acknowledged the challenges organizations face in delivering on those expectations. Healthcare systems are balancing rising consumer demands against staffing shortages, operational complexity, fragmented data environments, and growing financial pressures. As a result, many organizations are searching for ways to use technology, automation, and data more strategically to improve both efficiency and experience simultaneously.
Brand positioning matters more as markets become crowded
As healthcare markets become increasingly crowded and competitive, many organizations are struggling to clearly articulate what makes their brand distinct. It’s a tale as old as time.
Several post-HMPS discussions our team had with other attendees centered around the forces reshaping the competitive landscape, including rising consumer expectations, the retailization of healthcare, regional consolidation, overlapping service lines, and more.
In many markets, patients are being presented with more choices than ever before—and many healthcare organizations are starting to look and sound increasingly similar.
That reality is forcing organizations to rethink how they position themselves in the market and communicate with their patients. One especially compelling idea was that sophisticated digital tactics alone are no longer enough to stand out. Organizations can invest heavily in digital campaigns, AI tools, personalization strategies, and CRMs, but without a clearly differentiated brand foundation, those efforts often struggle to create lasting impact.
Multiple marketing leaders revealed how frustrating it can be to maintain momentum after a rebrand or repositioning. Rebranding is often treated as the finish line, when in reality it’s only the beginning. Without strong internal alignment, operational discipline, and consistent execution across teams, even well-designed brand strategies can quickly lose traction.
Where healthcare marketing goes from here
At the center of all these conversations was a common thread: Trust. Trust in your data. Trust in your technology. Trust in your brand. And trust in your ability to turn insights into action.
The organizations best positioned to grow in this new environment will be those that can connect market intelligence, digital engagement, physician strategy, and consumer insights into a unified approach to growth.
That’s where Definitive Healthcare can help. Our solutions give teams a clearer view of the market, helping them identify opportunities, align strategies, and make smarter decisions with confidence.
Ready to see how better data can power your healthcare growth strategy? Book a demo with Definitive Healthcare today.
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