Telling Effective Stories About Healthcare Tech
New technologies are transforming operations in all industries, including healthcare. But we tend not to hear very much about it from healthcare brands. Melissa Baratta, Senior VP and healthcare practice lead at marketing, social media, and PR firm Affect spoke with DMN tech about innovations in that space and why they should be featured in marketing efforts.
The question is: What accounts for the hesitation to discuss emerging tech applications in healthcare? Barratta believes organizations may be concerned about how to make it fit with their brand image, and with fears that automation will displace human doctors. She referred to a journal article that suggested that radiologists and pathologist will be out of a job in the next five years when AI takes over. “A lot of media picked up on that,” and that may have made some wary of appearing “to promote tech that would eliminate jobs or raise concerns about trust.”
However, Baratta believes that these concerns should not hold brands back from investing in tech and using it for better patient outcomes. The way to go about it is to “create educational stories, with perspective, that acknowledge challenges” while exploring how the tech “will help patients and help doctors” That includes applying AI to getting a handle on “data overload” and “more effectively mine data,” so that doctors are making better informed decisions for their patients.
The advantage for the brands that discuss their uses of emerging technologies now, she said, is that they “position themselves as thought leaders and innovaters.” It's an advantage “to talk about it when people are trying to understand what it means” and trying to grasp how it is can be used. That's why “now is the time to have a voice for thought leadership.”
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