If you missed our first recap post of HMPS ‘26, we shared our overall highlights from this year’s conference, including how we saw themes related to our 5 Lenses framework and a comprehensive overview of Mindy Grantham’s “Build or Buy” panel discussion with Laila Waggoner, Cristal Woodley, and Dean Browell.
Since then, we asked several team members and industry friends who attended HMPS26 to share what stood out most from the conversations, sessions, and hallway discussions. Their observations confirmed something we heard throughout the conference: while the industry is in a state of constant change and high stakes, healthcare marketing leaders are becoming more strategic, accountable, and connected to the operational realities that shape patient growth.
Here’s what our team members and friends observed at this year’s conference:
Matt Repucci, Regional Sales Director
- We’ll be hearing a lot more about trust: trust between internal teams, trust between patients and healthcare organizations, and trust in how AI is adopted responsibly. It’s how teams succeed together, how patients/prospects can work with your organization, and how we can all responsibly use AI.
- Even with lots of changes, there is a sense of optimism. Leaders realize that there are problems but now know that we can solve those problems if we work together.
Mindy Grantham, Director of Oncology Marketing
- Marketing is now being held accountable for business outcomes, not just activity. As health systems are shifting expectations, marketing is increasingly expected to drive measurable growth such as patient volume and service line performance. Campaigns and awareness are no longer enough.
- The real barrier to growth isn’t demand; it’s operational readiness. Even when marketing works, breakdowns in access, scheduling, intake, and follow-through prevent organizations from capturing that demand.
Joel Cessna, Head of Growth, and Managing Partner, Martech.Health Directory
- Healthcare marketers are working to elevate their role from reactive order takers to strategic growth partners by making space for innovation, employee-driven ideas, and smarter decisions around patient acquisition and engagement.
- Technology, AI, and content strategy are becoming inseparable from the patient experience, especially as organizations must now design digital information to be clear and useful for both people and machines.
Jared Johnson, Marketing Advisor, and Host, Healthcare Rap Podcast
- More than ever, there is a need to facilitate a lot more conversations and push forward as an industry. When we bring the right people and ideas to the table, the best solutions emerge. Now is not the time to keep best practices to ourselves.
- The race is on! Reaching patients at any stage of their health journey takes more channels and formats than ever before. Don’t throw that old patient marketing playbook out the window, because it still works for some segments, but understand that now you also have to add new chapters for new search and discovery methods.
Taken together, these observations point to the same conclusion: patient acquisition is no longer solved by campaigns alone. It requires trust, operational alignment, smarter technology decisions, clearer content, and a willingness to keep learning from one another.
The old patient marketing playbook still has value, but the next chapter requires healthcare organizations to connect strategy, access, engagement, and performance in a much more integrated way.
