The shifting role of healthcare marketers

Technology is changing the game for all businesses, and marketers are also finding new ways in which to do their jobs more effectively. Now healthcare marketers are discovering the ways in which they can use technology to identify and engage their target market.

In order to identify the priorities for healthcare marketers in the upcoming year, Affect, a public relations and social media agency specializing in technology, healthcare and professional services, spoke with a panel of senior healthcare executives from organizations like, Illumina, MDxHealth, Pfizer and Phoenix Children's Hospital. Based on those discussions, it published a guide to navigating major trends in healthcare marketing in 2018 with a look at five key areas:

1. Advanced social media use to increase awareness  and loyalty
2. Highly customized content plus promotion
3. Creative media relations
4. Emerging tech campaigns
5. Business-oriented metrics

I spoke with Melissa Baratta, SVP and healthcare practice lead at Affect, about the state of healthcare marketing in today's environment. She said that because of the increasingly important role technology is playing marketing, “the role of marketers for healthcare is shifting.”

Read more in Prescriptions for Healthcare Marketing in 2018

Can Facebook Prevent Suicide? Ethical Questions Arising from AI

In today’s hyperconnected world, we are generating and collecting so much data that it is beyond human capability to sift through it all. Indeed, one application of artificial intelligence is identifying patterns and deviations that signal intent on posts. Facebook is using AI in this way to extract value from its own Big Data trove. While that may be applied to a good purpose, it also raises ethical concerns.

Where might one get insight into this issue? In my own search, I found an organization called PERVADE (Pervasive Data Ethics for Computational Research). With the cooperation of six universities and the funding it received this September, it is working to frame the questions and move toward the answers.

I reached out to the organization for some expert views on the ethical questions related to Facebook’s announcement that it was incorporating AI in its expanded suicide-signal detection effort. That led to a call with one of the group’s members, Matthew Bietz.

Bietz told me the people involved in PERVADE are researching the ramifications of pervasive data, which encompasses continuous data collection — not just from what we post to social media, but also from the “digital traces that we leave behind anytime we’re online,” such as when we Google or email. New connections from the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearables further contribute to the growing body of “data about spaces we’re in,” he said. As this phenomenon is “relatively new,” it opens up new questions to explore with respect to “data ethics.”

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The Ethics of AI for Suicide Prevention

AI Raises Awareness of Fake News

The proliferation of fake news couldn't happen without technology. The internet allows anyone, anywhere to spread information -- whether or not it is true. But technology could also help serve as a tool that makes people more aware of which stories are not trustworthy.

(Image: Mega Pixel/Shutterstock)

True story: one of my social media connections asked for recommendations for reliable new sources and got a few outlets named, though some of us -- myself included -- said that you simply cannot rely wholly on any single source and have to check through multiple sources to be sure you get the full picture of the facts in context to find where the truth lies.

But not everyone is sophisticated enough to be aware that reports they see -- even from outlets with solid reputations -- need to be taken with a grain of salt. That's why Valentinos Tzekas founded FightHoax. Its AI-powered algorithm that empowers anyone to ascertain if an article is fake or not in just seconds without Googling the story.

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How AI Can Help You Decide What to Trust in Online News

Going Green In the UK

According to Britain’s environmental mandate traditionally powered cars and trucks will be eliminated from the roads altogether in the next couple of decades. That’s why now telematics are being applied to several models to find the most sustainable choices—both for consumer and industrial purposes.

This past July the UK took another step in its ambitious CO2 reduction targets that would keep pace with the plans set in France. UK environment secretary Michael Gove  announced that Britain would ban the sale of any cars powered by gas (petrol, as they call it,) or diesel fuel by 2040. That means that car manufacturers have to find economical designs (and the supply chains to bring those designs to reality) for cars and trucks powered by electricity in the near future.

To that end, the government has directed toward research and testing with funding of £20 million to be distributed via the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and Innovate UK among 20 firms that were selected to participate in the trial of low and zero emissions vehicles. The objective is not just to reduce C02 from auto emissions for the sake of improved air quality but to contribute to England’s aspirations “to be a global leader in electric vehicle technology.”

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Auto OEMs Supply Chains Pave the Road to Green