At PHM, embracing change and innovation in our day-to-day work is part of our DNA. Enter the Change Agents: thought leaders who are experts in their respective fields, helping to guide PHM and our clients through an ever-changing industry and media landscape. This series highlights these thought leaders and their unique point of view as it relates to health media.
This edition’s Change Agent, Nick McNally, Director, Point of Care, writes on how EHR engagement is playing a growing, critical role in any successful Point of Care strategy.
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are an integral part of modern clinical workflows, serving as a central hub for healthcare professionals (HCPs) to access and manage patient information. As these systems have evolved with users spending more time on platform, so have the media opportunities. According to the Journal of General Internal Medicine, primary care providers spent an average of approximately 7.3 hours working in their EHR daily in 2024. This represents about a 62% increase in usage from 2017, further increasing the value of this space and providing opportunities to connect with key audiences.
EHR has and continues to offer a rare opportunity for brands to intersect HCPs directly at the point of prescription, with messaging appearing when they are actively thinking about patient needs and treatment options. We can leverage the full breadth of EHR capabilities, including layering on multiple data points, to create relevance that other channels simply can’t replicate. These data-driven activations are a prominent reason why this channel consistently performs strongly. As a digital channel, EHR offers more flexibility than other traditional POC tactics, allowing these campaigns to be fully tailored to a brand’s specific targeting and messaging strategy. We can activate quickly and build custom approaches to messaging as needed.
In addition, EHR advertising has specifically seen significant growth over this past year, largely thanks to several new back-end integrations, where EHR vendors and health systems have created new ways to reach previously untapped users with relevant, in workflow messaging. Many of PHM’s long-standing partners are already adopting these new capabilities, giving our clients immediate access to the benefits from increased inventory. With the continued adoption of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards and the rising role of AI within workflow tools, the industry is moving toward even more precise and dynamic EHR engagement opportunities.
At PHM, our Point of Care team is actively keeping a pulse on continued innovations in this space by collaborating daily with EHR partners and industry organizations, such as the Point of Care Marketing Association (POCMA). These partnerships allow us to stay informed on emerging capabilities and new inventory opportunities, enabling us to advocate for the needs of our clients during initial phases of development. We’ve helped standardize creative requirements and ad verification practices with the goal of creating greater consistency and reliability across this space, and we play a large role in developing measurement solutions. The strength of these relationships, combined with Publicis Groupe’s broader buying power, gives PHM unique influence, preferred pricing opportunities and priority access across platforms.
Through strong partnership and an eye for innovation, we can continue to leverage the true strengths of the EHR environment as it continues to evolve.
Connect with Nick on LinkedIn.
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