Embracing Change: 3 Takeaways from PulsePoint’s HealthNEXT Summit 2025

Embracing Change: 3 Takeaways from PulsePoint’s HealthNEXT Summit 2025

Collaboration and co-creation are key to staying ahead in the fast-paced healthcare marketing industry. That’s the driving force behind PulsePoint’s annual HealthNEXT Summit, a convening of doers, thinkers, and innovators in the programmatic space.

At this year’s HealthNEXT Summit in New York City, the central theme that came up again and again was change. Over the course of a single day, attendees explored every part of the healthcare journey, how that journey has transformed, and what the future of the programmatic marketing industry might look like.

Bringing together agency leaders, pharma execs, programmatic specialists, marketers, healthcare providers, and more, PulsePoint created a space that was primed for thought leadership and creative exploration, and “an opportunity for all of us to think a little bit differently,” as Jonathan Zile, SVP at PulsePoint, said during one of the panels.

Here are our top three takeaways from the event.

1. Clinical Audiences Are Changing

During the first panel of the day, attendees heard directly from practicing healthcare providers (HCPs) about how they actually engage with brands and what moves them from awareness to writing a script for a treatment.

When asked how their industry has changed in the last ten years, the HCPs noted that clinical audiences are changing, and so are their behaviors, including how they interact with brands and find treatments. On the patient side, the HCPs said they’re seeing people who are both younger and older, as more 30-to-40-year-olds are getting certain illnesses, including cancer, but people are also living longer on average.

The demographics of HCPs are also changing; we now have Gen Z doctors, and these digital natives interact with technology and treatment messaging differently than previous generations. And providers of all ages now live in their electronic health records (EHR), which has become an essential part of their clinical workflow.

2. Marketers Need to Manage Change Responsibly

From AI to more dynamic targeting and activation, the technology that marketers use is changing rapidly. At the summit, marketing agency chiefs sat in the hot seat for a panel that covered the future of the industry, including the bold moves that some people are still hesitant to make.

Thanks to new technology and AI-based processes, panelists said that some tasks are taking significantly less time than they used to, but there is always pressure to do even more with that time, and it’s a constant learning process. Keeping their teams educated and trained on new tools ensures they can stay ahead of change and maximize potential.

In another panel, speakers explored how to battle waste and inefficiency in marketing amid rapid changes and growth. One panelist recommended staying in close contact with industry partners and vendors while integrating new tools, as well as sharing information and “upskilling” internally.

Newness and change can be intimidating, but several panelists throughout the day stressed the need to turn that fear and hesitation into excitement and momentum. Meaningful transformation takes time, energy, and effort, but it will be beneficial in the long run to ensure things are changing for the better.

3. New Tools Are Driving Smarter Activation

In three breakout sessions, attendees heard from panels of experts before joining small groups to discuss platform success, DTC innovation, and HPC insights and activation. Diving into the PulsePoint platform, attendees were able to learn about the newest features and how to get the most out of their campaigns.

From their conversations, it was clear we’re in a new era of HCP intelligence. Panelists discussed how they’re leveling up their audience research through tools like PulsePoint’s HCP365 and the new HCP Explorer, which offers real-time visualizations, data control, and deeper audience insights. For example, one panelist said they’re able to connect claims data to digital behaviors, enabling them to build a more complete profile of target HCPs.

The morning of the summit, PulsePoint also announced its new Adaptive Optimization™, an AI-powered capability that enables users to optimize campaigns with clinical signals to improve qualified audience reach. Having access to these real-time and HCP-level insights gives marketers the power to change lives, especially when it comes to rare or chronic diseases. With new precision targeting tools, fewer messages are getting lost among the general population.

In Conclusion

In the middle of rapid technological change, we recognize the value of human decision-making, which is why we brought the best and brightest of our industry together into one room. The one-day, in-person format of this summit created an electric environment that pushed both panelists and attendees to engage, innovate, and walk away motivated.

Keep an eye out for future blog posts diving into each of the topics we discussed at HealthNEXT 2025. Want to be involved in our next event? Contact the team here.

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