Our experts from AREA 23 share their insights after attending HLTH 2025, the annual event dedicated to fostering a healthier world, inspiring new ideas and driving action.
The promise of personalized healthcare is predicated on the patient
Maya Avrasin, Group Director of Engagement and Product Strategy, AREA 23
Personalized healthcare is often described as the future of medicine. Yet, without true interoperability, it remains just out of reach. So many of the conversations at HLTH 2025 centered on this issue, with the pessimists stating that we’ll never get there and the optimists (many of them from the tech sector like OpenAI, Nvidia and Microsoft) pleading for collaboration and data transparency.
The healthcare industry is awash in data, but Oura Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ricky Bloomfield, said, "We’re in this reactive, break-fix health system environment." Until data can move freely across systems and be meaningfully connected, personalization will remain an aspiration rather than a standard. Some speakers cited that we’re at least 15 years away from true, personalized medicine. So, the onus will be on the patient to fill this gap in care.
As Margaret Anderson, Chief Marketing Officer of the Federal Health Sector at Deloitte framed it, "The consumer is the ultimate CEO of their health." That shift places enormous responsibility — and opportunity — on the individual. Patients are no longer passive recipients of care; they are emerging as active data stewards, responsible for curating, managing and sharing the information that shapes their health journeys. Anyone looking to capture this zero-party data will need to establish trust, be transparent with patients and provide tools to empower them. Solutions may look like AI-powered assistants or coaches, reminding patients and caregivers to make appointments, get screened or refill their prescriptions.
The next era of healthcare will belong to those who can accomplish this — enabling patients to harness their own information, and action on it for themselves. Data may be the foundation of personalized medicine, but trust and access will determine its success.
Escaping pilot purgatory: Why healthcare AI's credibility crisis demands a new playbook
Aaron Stack, Director, Creative Engineering, AREA 23
Healthcare organizations are trapped in what Greg Meyers called "prototype purgatory" during his HLTH 2025 session, "The 10% of AI Projects That Drive 80% of Results." The stats are brutal: 83% of companies pilot AI, but fewer than 10% invest in production infrastructure. 70% of pilots never scale. For healthcare brands, this creates a trust vacuum. When most AI claims never materialize, every vendor sounds like vaporware. Marketers need to stop amplifying potential and start proving performance.
The chaos is real. In "Real-World AI Solutions for the C-Suite," Sas Mukherjee shared feedback from health systems: "AI projects are like ants crawling all over the organization. Hard to control, hard to govern." Yet his team hit 95% success on actual deployments by contractually committing to financial benefits. Healthcare marketers should take note: guarantees beat promises. Lead campaigns with risk-sharing models and verified outcomes, not feature lists.
What separates production from purgatory? John Beadle nailed it in "If Everything is AI, Then Nothing is AI": "Healthcare has no shortage of breakthroughs from a technology standpoint, but it does have a real shortage of scale and trust and impact." Cedar-Sinai's Nasim Eftekhari revealed the key in "From Pilots to Superintelligence": "We should be building with the clinicians, not for them." For marketers, this means co-creation stories sell better than innovation theater. Position your clients as partners who build alongside clinicians, not vendors who sell to them.
As Beadle concluded: "Impact moves at the speed of trust." The brands that win will make AI understandable, verifiable and clinician-centered in every message. The future belongs to those who stop selling demos and start proving outcomes.
