Structure at Scale

What growing health systems are getting right about marketing, communications and digital experience

The healthcare sector is navigating a complex set of challenges: margin pressure, workforce constraints,

digital disruption, and rising consumer expectations. At the same time, the opportunity to redefine how care

is accessed, experienced, and trusted has never been greater.

In this environment, organizations must balance growth, operational efficiency, and mission alignment while

strengthening their connection to patients, members, and communities. As a result, marketing,

communications, and public affairs have become central to enterprise strategy. Leadership in these

functions is more critical than ever — driving growth, deepening stakeholder engagement, and protecting

and elevating reputation in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Growth is what exposes structure. A health system can run on strong individual performers and informal

coordination at a steady state. New service lines, market expansion, and a new CEO's agenda change that

math — they multiply the number of decisions, launches, and messages moving through the organization at

once. Across the field, the systems managing that transition well share a common thread: they treat

corporate communications, marketing, and digital experience as one connected system, not three separate

departments that happen to work near each other.

OVERVIEW

THE PATTERN ACROSS THE FIELD

Across the field, health systems are converging on the same structural answer. Peer-reviewed research on integrated marketing communications in healthcare finds that advertising, public relations, digital, and community engagement consistently produce stronger, more consistent results when coordinated around one strategy rather than run as separate departments. SHSMD, the field's own professional association, now treats strategy, marketing, communications, and digital engagement as inherently connected disciplines — not standalone specialties competing for budget and attention.

WHAT'S AT STAKE IN GETTING IT RIGHT

The right structure shows up on both sides of the ledger:

  • Speed to market: fewer hand-offs between marketing, comms, and digital means service-line launches and campaigns reach patients faster.

  • Cost efficiency: shared governance reduces duplicated content, redundant agency spend and overlapping tools.

  • Reputation and risk: coordinated functions respond faster and more consistently during leadership change, workforce issues, or a safety event.

  • Consumer trust and adoption: a connected digital experience, not just a redesigned website, is what drives portal engagement, scheduling conversion, and retention.

WHY WE'RE RAISING THIS

This work has been core to our practice for more than 30 years — including, at leading academic medical centers, where we have partnered with organizations to build a marketing leader's full team, from marketing strategy and operations, corporate communications, digital and creative. As former practitioners, we understand what these structures require from the inside, not just how they should look on paper.

Every health system has an important story to tell. Telling it well takes more than narrative — it takes marketing, communications, and digital leadership fully aligned with the organization's mission and growth goals. That alignment is what turns complexity into clarity, and clarity into measurable results: growth, access, reputation, and trust.

Sample Client List