Josh Byrd

Richard Wells, Jarrard Vice President

Brand is everything and everything is brand. Reporting your brand activity informs your leaders and key partners that brand work is made up of some clear and tangible activities. Report on your team’s work in a format that reinforces the comprehensive nature of brand – with qualitative and quantitative impact.

Sophisticated models exist to measure the strength of and loyalty to your brand. But does your leadership understand your team’s role in advancing and protecting your brand? If not, start with reporting on:

1. Brand Architecture: Your team spends time and resources on the visual identity of your organization through logos, names and how they are used and, importantly, how they relate to one another and the main brand name. Be sure to report on requests for name and logo use, cobranding conversations, style guide revisions and – importantly – decisions that were made for each request.
2. Brand Experience: Brands happen where people experience them. How do your stakeholders experience your brand? Consider the many touchpoints that patients and others experience with your brand. What is your team’s role in signage, uniforms, logos on invoices/forms and the cohesive branded aesthetic of the facilities?
3. Brand Positioning: How do you want your stakeholders to think about your brand? Does your organization have a clear and widely understood brand positioning statement that 1) defines how you want stakeholders to think of you and 2) serves as a guide for your storytelling? Market research, sentiment analysis and other quantitative measures are foundational to defining your current and desired brand. Ensure your leaders and key partners receive routine and insightful reporting on both internal and external brand positioning.

Differentiate the results of your brand efforts from the daily work of your brand strategy. Routine reporting provides evidence that brand is expressed in everything you do both internally and externally.

Pattie Cuen, Senior Vice President

Generative AI tools are now the front door for consumer information gathering. For healthcare, it’s where patients first turn for research, help with decision making and gathering a perception of their care or treatment – before ever visiting any website. And carving the path for these user journeys is a brand imperative.

How We Got Here

Unlike traditional search engine optimization (SEO), generative engine optimization (GEO) prioritizes a website’s authority, trustworthiness and corroboration across sources. It also crystalizes the clarity in which AI engines can answer given prompts. Both aspects are critical in healthcare interactions, where credibility is non-negotiable.

GEO shifts from ranking for keywords to a clear display of answering real questions. Early research shows AI-generated answers are drawn from a limited, highly trusted source set, amplifying the stakes for brand visibility and accuracy.

How Generative AI Engines Source Answers

While websites are still foundational and important to GEO results, they only account for one part of the equation. SEO orders rank based on keywords, traditional site hierarchy, inbound/outbound linking, etc. GEO favors:

• Direct, well-structured answers to natural-language queries
• Consistent terminology aligned to real users’ questions
• Content that mirrors how people ask, not just how brands market

Ultimately, results are showing that the completeness of answers to questions asked through AI tools and the depth to which a source can speak to a topic both increasingly outweigh keyword density.

Authority Is the Algorithm

While website content is important, it only influences about quarter of GEO rank, depending on the platform.

AI engines reward the same signals humans trust: editorial vetting, institutional credibility and third-party validation. The easier the engine can recognize clear attribution, easily extractable information and trusted sourcing, the more likely your content will appear in corresponding query answers.

In healthcare, content from high-authority media and institutions disproportionately influences AI outputs. Research shows AI health responses heavily cite legacy medical institutions (e.g., Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic), underscoring the need to borrow and build authority through earned media coverage.

A Blended Approach

Because GEO draws from a broader “trust ecosystem,” it’s vital that MarComm teams focus on ranking based on a combination of owned web content and external sources, particularly media coverage. GEO feeds on a wider combination of factors than SEO, including reviews and reputation platforms (Google, Healthgrades, etc.) and publicly accessible thought leadership content.

As audio and video formats continue to remain both popular and critical for rank, be mindful that these formats and gated content must be translated into crawlable, text-based environments (transcripts, on-page text etc.) to impact GEO. Visibility also requires both being featured and being referenced in indexable spaces.

Moving the Needle

If your organization is just starting to explore your GEO strategy, consider these initial steps:

• Assess and modify content across your owned channels to answer common questions clearly.
• Treat media coverage as a GEO signal – particularly in consideration of outlets pursued and key messaging.
• Showcase earned media strategically on owned channels with outbound links.
• Think beyond your website to a broader digital footprint.

Optimize for clarity, authority and accessibility.

Taylar (Kobylas) Mical, MS, Senior Digital Manager; and Sheila Biggs, Vice President

A new year is typically a time to think about goals – for yourself and for your department. Whether you’re embarking now on reaching freshly stated goals for 2026 or whether your organization starts a new fiscal year in the coming months, it’s a good time to think about goal setting.

Linking your goals to organizational goals might feel elusive. Especially for those goals without obvious, related KPIs. Often organizational goals in healthcare are highly patient, employee and quality-focused, making it difficult to link your team’s work exactly to the goals.

Need some examples of how to do that? Check out these typical healthcare organizational goals and see suggestions for corresponding Marketing and Communications goals:

• “Provide excellent care.” Your team plays a significant role in defining an attractive brand that eases consumer choice. Consider a goal such as:  “Brand message establishes differentiated presence in the market and reinforces reputation as a clinical leader.”
• “Attract and retain best staff.” Both your brand efforts and internal comms efforts are important contributors to this organizational goal. Consider a team goal that focuses on extending brand strategy to an employer brand that establishes your organization as an employer of choice. But don’t stop there. Also consider a goal that articulates your team’s work in employee retention such as: “Develop internal comms that keep all informed, celebrate the wins, inspires the workforce, showcases patient services and communicates organization’s key initiatives.”
• “Be a good community partner.” Your team is instrumental in communicating the important work your organization does in the community. Consider a team goal such as: “Position our organization as an engaged partner with the community and ensure key stakeholders are aware of our community efforts and accomplishments.”

These are simply starting points. Brainstorm now with your team to hear how they view their role as it relates to organizational goals. A structured workshop with your team will not only build enthusiasm but better refine the goals to suit your evolving organization.

Pattie Cuen, Senior Vice President

Health systems and health technology companies are deeply interconnected, but too often they talk past each other instead of with each other.

That gap matters, especially as digital tools play a growing role in how people experience healthcare. Today, more than 80 percent of U.S. health systems use telehealth in some form, and nearly all hospitals rely on electronic health records as the foundation of clinical and operational work. At the same time, investment in health technology continues to accelerate, shaping how care is delivered, accessed, and managed.

Patients are adapting just as quickly. A recent OpenAI report shows that tens of millions of people now use ChatGPT every day to ask health-related questions, including questions about insurance coverage, costs and how to navigate the healthcare system. People are increasingly turning to technology to fill gaps in understanding, access, and communication.

That reality raises an important question: If patients are already relying on digital tools, are health systems and health technology companies aligned enough to support them effectively?

• From the health system perspective, technology decisions are rarely abstract. Leaders and clinicians are balancing patient safety, quality outcomes, workforce burnout, regulatory requirements and financial pressure every day. Any new solution must integrate into complex workflows, support stretched teams and deliver clear value. If it does not, even promising innovation can create more burden than benefit.
• From the health technology perspective, progress depends on speed, iteration and scale. Companies are building tools to address real challenges around access, efficiency and coordination, but they also face a familiar frustration: being piloted repeatedly without a clear path to adoption. Endless pilots consume time and resources on both sides and can stall momentum, even when a solution shows promise. For technology companies, clarity on goals, decision-making and success metrics matters as much as clinical validation.

Both perspectives are valid, and neither works in isolation.

Interoperability is a clear example. While most hospitals can exchange some patient data electronically, clinicians still struggle to access complete and timely information across settings. This is not only a technical issue. It reflects gaps in communication, shared expectations and alignment between those building technology and those using it. That these gaps persist in spite of everyone acknowledging the problem for years underscores the need for greater alignment on the front end between health systems and their tech partners.

The real opportunity lies in earlier and more open conversation. Not just during procurement or implementation, but when problems are first being defined. When health systems and health technology companies understand each other’s constraints, incentives and definitions of success, solutions become more practical and partnerships more productive.

A few takeaways:

• Successful pilots require clear decision paths, ownership and shared definitions of success
• Technology adoption improves when health systems and tech companies design together, not in parallel

Patients are already using digital tools, whether the system is ready or not

Alex Hunter, Senior Vice President, Health Services & Technology Co-Lead

Tim Stewart Senior Partner, Academic Health Systems Practice Lead

Earlier this season, millions of football fans turned on their TVs only to find something missing — ESPN.

The culprit? Another high-profile carriage dispute between Disney and YouTube TV. Contracts expired, talks broke down and screens went black.

For those of us in healthcare, there’s something uncomfortably familiar about the whole thing. The same dynamics show up when hospitals and payers face off at the contract table.

When ESPN goes dark, fans miss a game. When a hospital and payer can’t agree, patients lose access. The stakes are higher, but leadership lessons are remarkably similar. Consider:

• Leverage isn’t the same as power. Leverage isn’t what you have. It’s what the other side believes they can’t afford to lose. In our media case, Disney owns the content; YouTube, the audience. Both need each other, yet each wants to look independent. Likewise, health systems bring care, and payers bring covered lives. Real power comes from understanding how your counterpart values what you bring and communicating that value clearly.
• Relationships are the safety net. When tensions rise in payer negotiations, long-standing trust keeps talks productive and can prevent total breakdown. Such relationships don’t materialize overnight but are built across years of transparency, collaboration, and, yes, sometimes disagreement. Cultivate that. Because once you’re staring down a contract expiration, the time for small talk is over.
• Be ready for your close-up. Disney and YouTube both rushed to shape the narrative: who’s fair, who’s fighting for the viewer. In healthcare, the same happens when negotiations go public. Control your narrative before any fight begins. After all, once the story goes public, it’s not just about reimbursement. It’s about reputation.
• Blackout is never the goal. When ESPN goes dark, fans lose trust in both companies. They don’t care who’s “right.” They just want their game back. Blackout isn’t leverage; it’s failure. Do everything possible to avoid the outcome that hurts the people you serve.
• The future is shifting. Negotiate for where the market is going, not where it’s been. Disney’s dispute wasn’t just about price; it was about structure. They’re redefining the bundle, folding ESPN into a new direct-to-consumer strategy. Likewise, healthcare is shifting too: value-based care, risk-sharing and employer partnerships are changing the playing field. Leaders must negotiate for where the market is going, not where it’s been.

The real mirror moment isn’t for Disney or YouTube. It’s for us.

When the screen goes dark, literally or metaphorically, what does it say about how we manage conflict, communicate value, and protect relationships?

Because in the end, our stakeholders aren’t watching the spreadsheets. They’re watching the show.

And whether that show is “College Game Day” or a patient’s care experience, they’ll remember who kept the lights on.

By Monica Haun, Senior Managing Advisor