touch point podcast

For years, healthcare has talked about patients as informed consumers. Now, many of them are showing up informed before they ever touch a health system. In this episode of Touch Point, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith unpack what’s behind OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT Health and why it signals a meaningful shift in how people seek, process, and act on health information. The conversation starts with...

As healthcare heads into 2026, the signals are getting harder to ignore. Financial pressure is mounting. Consumer expectations are accelerating. And digital strategies that once felt optional are now core infrastructure. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith kick off the new year with a trend-focused conversation unpacking what is actually changing across healthcare, digital strategy,...

Every year, they pause to look back at what resonated most with the Touch Point community. In our 2025 Touch Point Podcast Listener Choice Awards show, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith share a behind-the-scenes look at how the show performed this year and what listeners told us matters most. They break down where the show;s audience is tuning in from, including top cities, states, and countries. T...

In case you missed it, this episode tackles one of the biggest shifts quietly reshaping healthcare marketing: search is no longer about winning keywords. It is about understanding intent, context, and how AI now mediates discovery. Chris Boyer and Reed Smith revisit a timely conversation on how generative AI is changing the rules of SEO and why many traditional optimization tactics no longer hold...

We are back with the second half of our annual Holiday Sampler, featuring the remaining three episodes that round out Touch Point’s most downloaded shows of 2025. These are the conversations listeners kept coming back to. The ones that sparked follow-up questions, internal debates, and hallway conversations at conferences. Together, they reflect the themes that defined healthcare marketing and dig...

Health care did not have a quiet year. AI, experience, platforms, and “vibe” all took turns in the spotlight. In this first half of our Holiday Sampler, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith revisit four of the most downloaded Touch Point episodes of 2025. These clips capture the themes that kept listeners coming back. This episode features standout moments from: Episode 421: The Evolution of Patient E...

In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how health systems can make smarter decisions about Human In The Loop and Human Out Of The Loop models, and why these choices will define trust, safety, and experience in the coming years. What HITL and HOOTL actually mean How healthcare is applying these frameworks Why governance is the missing layer Where humans must remain as the final a...

It would not be Thanksgiving without a little tradition. Each year we pull together the three Touch Point interviews that listeners came back to again and again. Think of it as a sampler platter for the long weekend. No turkey, just the conversations that defined 2025 for healthcare marketers. This year’s top downloads brought a mix of AI momentum, creative reinvention, and a fresh look at online...

Healthcare digital strategy is changing faster than most systems can keep up with. Privacy restrictions are tightening, AI is rewriting search, patients are shifting expectations, and many of the digital tactics health systems still rely on are quietly becoming obsolete. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith count down six digital habits the industry needs to retire. They explore why c...

Recorded on-site at the 2025 HealthCare Internet Conference (HCIC) in Las Vegas, host Chris Boyer sat down with consulting experts Cynthia Newton, Therese Lockemy, and Christine Albert from Solutions Central to discuss the biggest trends shaping healthcare marketing and digital strategy today. Together, they explore how health systems are navigating rapid change—balancing technology innovation wit...

AI is no longer just a search companion; it’s becoming a digital negotiator. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how agentic AI and new AI-driven browsers like Atlas and Comet are transforming the healthcare consumer experience. The discussion examines how these emerging tools are rewriting the rules of visibility, consent, and control - shifting healthcare from a web built f...

In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore what it takes to build a future-ready marketing organization that connects intelligence to impact. They break down why the next phase is about velocity—turning insight into action—rather than visibility alone, and how maturity depends on integration, governance, and access to data. Then, Priyama Barua of Merge joins the conversation to disc...

In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore why traditional healthcare marketing is falling behind, and how focusing on relationships instead of reach may be the only sustainable path forward. They unpack the data showing the industry’s growing gap between visibility and value: Only 28% of healthcare marketers have a documented content strategy. 65% of patients search online before c...

For all the talk about digital transformation, finding a doctor is still one of healthcare’s most frustrating experiences. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore why access and accuracy remain elusive even as health systems roll out new self-service tools, AI agents, and “digital front door” platforms. The paradox is clear: smarter technology has not simplified the search for ca...

As AI becomes more fluent, empathetic, and embedded in communication workflows, healthcare’s relationship with voice, empathy, and trust is being redefined. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore the coming shift where technology mediates the patient experience itself, interpreting emotions, intent, and tone. They discuss: The Signals – Why early pilots in AI-driven communicatio...

The era of easy targeting and attribution in healthcare marketing is over. With disappearing cookies, stricter platform restrictions, and growing consumer expectations, health systems are being forced to rethink how they segment audiences, measure ROI, and test emerging channels. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore: Segmentation in a Privacy-First World – Why CDPs, not CRMs a...

HIPAA is no longer the only rule that matters in healthcare privacy. State laws, FTC enforcement, and even wiretapping lawsuits are reshaping what health systems can and cannot do with data — and AI is adding another layer of complexity. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore: Beyond HIPAA: How state privacy laws and enforcement actions are redefining what “compliance” means for...

For years, HIPAA has been the rulebook for healthcare privacy. But in 2025, the real drivers of risk (and opportunity) come from state laws, FTC enforcement, and lawsuits that extend well beyond traditional PHI. In this episode, Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore: Why state privacy laws are reshaping digital marketing more than HIPAA. How the marketing funnel is being rewritten, with upper-funnel...

Health systems are facing a new reality: “do more with less” is no longer a slogan, it is the baseline. With shrinking margins, delayed capital investments, and workforce fatigue, marketing leaders are under pressure to deliver growth and digital progress with fewer resources. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore: Constraints as the new baseline: why financial pressure, staffi...

Health systems have long promised to “break down silos,” but are marketing, IT, and clinical teams finally being forced to collaborate in meaningful ways? In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how consumer expectations, ROI pressures, and enabling platforms are reshaping what patient engagement really means:  From Silos to Systems – Why joint governance across marketing, IT, an...

Healthcare marketers are navigating a landscape where martech is both exploding in scale and under pressure to prove its value. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore the latest shifts shaping the future of healthcare marketing and technology: The rise of autonomous systems – moving from pilots to practical tools that reshape operations and engagement. Human–machine collaboratio...

Behavioral modeling is reshaping how campaigns are built, measured, and optimized, moving us from broad strokes to precise strategies that drive measurable impact. Hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how healthcare organizations can adapt to this shift: Why behavioral modeling changes media planning, creative strategy, and workflow collaboration. Moving past CTRs to metrics that align with bu...

Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how marketing and communications teams can adapt their digital content strategies for a future where search behavior is fragmenting and more patients are turning to generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Bing Copilot instead of traditional search engines. They also discuss how AI models often cite structured, well-answered content from trusted sources...

Consumerism is impacting all health systems but does this mean the same thing in the same way to academic medical centers, urban hospitals, and rural health systems? Reed Smith and Chris Boyer unpack the growing tension between what patients want and what different types of health systems are built to deliver. From broadband gaps in rural markets to brand-driven loyalty in AMCs, they explore wheth...

As the martech stack continues to evolve, health systems are facing a growing challenge: how to balance enterprise-grade safety and security with the performance demands of modern digital marketing. In this episode, hosts Reed Smith and Chris Boyer tackle that tension head-on, exploring what transformation really looks like when your tools, teams, and tactics need to evolve simultaneously. In the...