Jarrard Senior Vice President Michael Knecht attended and facilitated sessions at the 2026 Healthcare Marketing & Physician Strategies Summit (HMPS). These are his key takeaways.
WHERE & WHEN: Salt Lake City, May 3 – 6, 2026
More than 800 healthcare leaders from across the country assembled at HMPS – the Healthcare Marketing & Physician Strategies Summit. The Summit is a premier educational and networking event for healthcare marketing, communication, digital, strategy and physician relations executives at all levels. Once again, Jarrard was pleased to sponsor the Strategic Communications track of the conference and help guide many topical conversations around external, internal and executive communications strategies and approaches.
TOP TAKEAWAYS:
- We’ve shifted from “FOMO to FOBO”
The emphasis on artificial intelligence as a driving theme at most professional meetings shows no sign of slowing. If anything, the frequency and urgency around AI is intensifying as more MarComm shops across the country adopt tools and processes into their daily workstreams. As one keynote presenter pointed out: We’ve shifted from “FOMO to FOBO” as it relates to AI. That is, we evolved from the “Fear of Missing Out” on integrating the latest/greatest AI tools into our lives, to a state of “Fear of Becoming Obsolete.”As workplaces support – and in some cases mandate – the use of AI tools to streamline work, people are increasingly concerned about the future prospects for MarComm talent. Of course, while no concrete answers are available regarding the final disposition of AI, given its ongoing evolution, all practitioners were advised to remain vigilant and flexible in the face of what comes next. Tasks requiring strategy, higher understanding of complex personal dynamics and empathy remain squarely in the human sphere of control. So, for now at least, breathe easy, fellow MarComm professionals. - Activation not Acquisition
Another keynote session featuring MarComm leaders from some of our country’s leading academic health systems focused on MarComm teams’ shift from emphasizing acquiring new patients to better activating existing patients. As technologies have evolved, health systems are now more effectively mining (in a fully compliant fashion, of course) their existing patient profiles and using predictive modeling to identify potential service opportunities. Whether these strategies are deemed to remedy “leakage” or “keepage,” the benefits and results are the same. It remains significantly less costly to identify/engage an already loyal patient than to attract a new one. The challenge for health systems involves shifting mindsets from being transactional – i.e., being geared towards episodic care delivery – to being partners in care over a patient’s lifetime. Let’s hope we are up for this most beneficial task. - Building Trust (not Transactions) to Drive the Bottom Line
In addition to AI, the theme of “trust” enjoyed a major portion of the spotlight at HMPS. All types of trust. Trust in our providers among patients. Trust in technology by providers. Trust by all sectors of the industry (patient, provider and payer alike) in how our systems are designed and managed. Several panels shared case studies reflecting the general decline in trust, regardless of an organization’s mission, location or size, along with smart strategies to acknowledge and combat this erosion over time. Although the approaches used to blunt this decline might vary, the common thread among all presenters was the observation that the pattern will regrettably continue until all players make rebuilding trust a top priority moving forward.
Contact us to help you start your shift (FOBO, activation or otherwise).
