In today’s digital landscape, leading health systems need to strike a delicate balance between the needs of marketers, the desires of consumers, and the stringent expectations of privacy and regulatory compliance. These perspectives create a healthy tension that requires innovation and careful navigation to ensure success. It also requires partnership between marketing, technology, compliance, and vendors, each bringing a unique set of skills and perspectives to the table. 

This partnership will inevitably require tradeoffs, collaboration, and compromise, so strong commitment to creative problem solving — despite the complexity and challenges the landscape presents — is critical to achieving mutual success.

Bringing the right attitude will create the environment for conversations to focus around the questions of “how could we…” or “what if…” rather than stopping with “we can’t because…” Tradeoffs will inevitably be required but you want to make sure you assemble a team that pushes for what can be accomplished to achieve the widest set of capabilities possible.

Some questions to help your team press on what is possible are:

What simple personalizations can we use without detailed profiling? Teams spend a ton of time and effort getting personalization systems in place just to fall apart at leveraging them. Without a plan for what customizations they would want to make and what user behaviors would trigger those customizations, these efforts are wasted. Taking a look at the details of your plan with technology experts may allow them to see ways to accomplish your goals without the detailed level of profile building that can run afoul of either regulations or consumer expectations.

What useful marketing insights can we get from less detailed analytics? While they may not come with as slick an interface and as detailed a level of information as modern analytics systems, analyzing the logs of the systems serving your website may still yield valuable insights on the traffic patterns of your visitors. Also, because this analysis can often happen “in house” it can reduce some of the privacy concerns that come with using a vendor. There can also be actions taken to further scrub the logs of any potentially sensitive information before analysis is done.

Are there any anonymization techniques we can use? Are there providers for the functionality we need that sign BAAs? The tools and vendors that address these needs are continually evolving and expanding. Phase2 has experience with tools like Freshpaint and Tealium that offer ways to ensure sensitive data is only shared with those who sign BAAs. These, and other vendors, sign BAAs with their clients in order to offer functionality that can’t be done without them.

Navigating the healthcare marketing landscape requires a collaborative approach that balances innovation with compliance. By fostering a partnership among marketing, technology, compliance, and vendors, organizations can effectively address their needs. This collaboration should be driven by a commitment to creative problem-solving and a willingness to explore new possibilities, rather than being hindered by perceived limitations. By asking the right questions and leveraging available tools and techniques, such as effective personalization, insightful analytics, and robust anonymization methods, healthcare marketers can achieve their goals while respecting privacy and regulatory requirements. Ultimately, the key to success lies in assembling a team that is not only skilled but also dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

This article was written by Chris Johnson, VP of Engineering, Phase2. He is a seasoned hands-on web developer and enterprise architect whose specialties include high-performance database-backed content management systems, large-scale Drupal systems, complex multi-system integrations, and continuous integration and delivery pipelines. He ensures our Engineering team excels at solving problems and applying the right technology, or none at all, to the job at hand.