Who do patients trust now?

Health information and influence in the age of AI, creators and online communities

The patient journey has fundamentally changed.

People are no longer starting their healthcare journey in a doctor’s surgery, pharmacy or hospital. They are starting with a search query, an AI chatbot or a conversation on an online forum. By the time they speak to their doctor, many have already formed opinions about symptoms, treatments and outcomes.

For healthcare communicators, this creates new challenges but also opportunities. Trusted information needs to be discoverable, visible and available when the patient is looking for answers.

To explore what this means in practice, Brands2Life brought together experts from the NHS, pharma, community pharmacy and the charity sector. Our latest report uncovers the key shifts influencing health information today:

• Answers to healthcare questions need to be visible and available to patients that need them, when they need them
• Broadcasting content no longer fits into this changing landscape; brands need to understand what questions patients are asking to engage with the conversations where it is appropriate for them to do so
• Organisations must learn to work with the algorithm, bridging scientific accuracy with a deep understanding of how and why people are engaging with online content

Read the report below to discover what healthcare communicators need to do differently in this AI-search, social-first health space.