Hospitals15 Healthcare Industry, Marketing, & Tech Trends for 2024
15 Healthcare Industry, Marketing, & Technology Trends for 2024
Stay updated on healthcare industry trends: General healthcare trends, healthcare marketing trends, and healthcare technology trends. Explore WebFX’s custom digital marketing solutions.
insights from 98,500+ hours of healthcare marketing experience
The healthcare industry is constantly changing and evolving. The best way to continue marketing your healthcare business effectively and providing excellent care for your patients is to stay on top of the latest healthcare industry trends.
Today, we’re helping you stay ahead of the curve by exploring 15 of the top healthcare industry, marketing, and technology trends to look out for in 2024:
Need a digital marketing provider that understands the ins and outs of healthcare marketing? WebFX has you covered — check out some of our healthcare case studies or contact us to learn more about our custom digital marketing services!
We can’t talk about emerging healthcare industry trends without talking about artificial intelligence (AI). In particular, we’re talking about generative AI, which medical professionals already use to make healthcare processes more efficient, like answering common patient questions with online chatbots.
From a marketing perspective, generative AI tools are helping healthcare companies better market themselves to prospective patients through content creation.
Expert insights from
Clayton TroutWebFX Healthcare Industry Expert
AI can be a great resource for generating ideas for your content strategy or helping you outline your content before you start writing. AI can’t and will not replace everything we do in content strategy, but it can be great to have in our tool belt as we look to grow our digital strategies.
That said, it’s crucial medical professionals know how to use generative AI for healthcare safely in 2024.
Always fact-check AI-generated content! Just because your content generator wrote it, does not mean it is accurate. Have a plan in place when creating content with AI assistance to have a thorough review from a medical professional. AI-generated content frequently will duplicate content from other sites, which can have a negative impact on your site’s SEO from the lack of unique content. Not to mention, you cannot just copy someone else’s content and use it!
Clayton Trout
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Virtual healthcare like telehealth and telemedicine has exploded since 2020. While it’s not in as high of a demand as it was when COVID-19 first came on the scene, it’s still a popular alternative to traveling to a healthcare clinic. Google Trends data shows that since 2020, the search volume for the term “telehealth” not only spiked, but remains higher than pre-pandemic levels.
What does this 2024 healthcare industry trend mean for medical institutions? It’s simple — continue providing opportunities for virtual health visits where applicable and make telehealth and telemedicine available if you haven’t already.
3. Information security
Another key healthcare industry trend many can expect to see in 2024 is an increased emphasis on cyber and information security. As technology continues to advance, the threat of cyber-attacks and data breaches grows. Also growing are the penalties for not implementing security measures.
Keeping sensitive patient information private and secure is a priority among all healthcare institutions. As a result, you can expect more robust data security measures to be put in place across different hospitals and clinics. From the professional level (doctors, nurses, etc.) to the patient level (people logging into online health platforms), all areas of healthcare are investing in better digital security to protect sensitive medical information from hackers.
4. Personalized healthcare
With AI and other healthcare technology advancements (more on that in a bit), people can expect to see more personalized medicine in 2024. Personalized medicine is a healthcare industry trend that’s been on the rise for some time now, and we don’t expect it to go away any time soon.
With new technology emerging, how could doctors and nurses not personalize healthcare? From detailed digital imaging to virtual reality (VR), patient care is being revolutionized, using health data to:
Personalize treatment plans and medicine (also referred to as precision medicine)
Better visualize symptoms
Predict the long-term effects of certain conditions
Make diagnoses based on patient DNA analysis
5. Preventative healthcare
Along with personalizing treatments to individual patients, the industry is sailing toward a strategic healthcare trend that can’t be ignored: prevention.
Preventative healthcare as a 2024 trend is a sign that the industry is seeing a huge shift from reactive to proactive care, and part of the reason for this shift is because of the technological advances that now allow healthcare providers to detect illnesses early on.
From wearable biosensors like continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices to something as simple as the Apple Watch and its health-tracking apps, more opportunities are emerging for patients and practitioners to take preventative measures regarding their well-being.
Arguably the most important healthcare marketing trend to know for 2024 is to put yourself in your patient’s shoes when creating web content. The patient journey isn’t as simple as looking for the closest medical provider and calling it a day — it’s all about research.
Patients often research their symptoms first, then seek a provider. This means turning to search engines to ask questions about symptoms for potential diagnoses.
So, how do I attract patients in this research phase?
Create content centered around the patient research journey. To start, try following these guidelines:
Condition pages: Build a blog addressing frequent patient questions and create pages centered around specific conditions you treat, answering questions like common symptoms and when to see a doctor.
Treatment pages: Further develop your condition pages by talking about your treatment options and/or unique solutions.
Location pages: Build your visibility by targeting related local search terms to attract patients and qualified leads.
Provider pages: Enhance your search visibility by showcasing your providers, using keywords like “Dr. Appleseed in [location]” or “Dr. Appleseed at [clinic].”
2. Demonstrating E-E-A-T
In the healthcare industry, there are plenty of big players to contend with in search results, like WebMD, Mayo Clinic, and the CDC, to name a few. Their authority on healthcare information and advice is undeniable and when it comes to healthcare search engine optimization (SEO), authority is a major factor that can determine your visibility.
To better contend with major healthcare entities on search engines, demonstrate your healthcare company’s expertise and website authority through E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
E-E-A-T is especially important in healthcare as search engines want to make sure your website is credible before it offers your business as a solution in the search results. Some ways your business can enhance E-E-A-T signals include highlighting awards and recognitions on your site, building out strong bio pages for your team of healthcare professionals (think education, experience, awards), and having your site’s content feature the expertise and input from real health professionals.
In other words, CRO is all about making it easier for people to become patients on your site. You can do this in a few different ways, like optimizing landing pages, ensuring your website is mobile-friendly, and ensuring that information is easy for prospects and patients to find, like your contact page.
4. Strengthening local SEO presence
With the exception of certain diagnoses, most people perform local searches when looking for a healthcare professional or office. Coupled with the fact that Google Business Profile listings appear above organic search results in these cases, it’s all the more important that healthcare professionals strengthen their local SEO strategy in 2024.
Establishing a strong local SEO foundation through your Google Business Profile and other core citations can help increase visibility and consistency. It’s something that can be easily overlooked but is shown to make a significant impact.
Clayton Trout
5. Increased online presence
All in all, one of the biggest healthcare marketing trends 2024 will see is an increased online presence. We’re in a digital age, and building an online presence is crucial to attracting new patients.
It’s also crucial for providing care and disseminating health information to patients and non-patients. Patients turn to the Internet when they get the inkling that they or someone they care for may not be feeling well. Increasing your online presence helps make you more accessible to them and others like them who are actively looking for the services you offer.
Another healthcare technology trend to keep an eye out for in 2024 is the use of augmented reality (AR) and VR tech. Most associate AR and VR with video games, but they’re actually used in innovative ways that are improving the healthcare industry and will likely continue to do so in the coming year.
Even now, healthcare and medical professionals harness the power of AR and VR to learn and revolutionize how doctors care for patients. Surgeons are using AR for non-invasive wound assessment, while VR is being used to help patients manage long-term chronic pain.
Use cases for AR and VR technology in healthcare are only expected to grow and evolve in 2024.
2. Virtual healthcare assistants
Just like chatbots assist online shoppers on retail sites, they’re helping patients and clinicians in the form of virtual healthcare assistants. These chatbots can help clinicians provide advice regarding treatments, diagnoses, medications, and more.
On the patient-facing side, virtual healthcare assistants help people by answering questions about symptoms, diagnoses, and connecting them with the right providers who can further assist them. They can also help remind patients to take medications or send reminders about future appointments or check-ins.
3. Mental health technology
The pandemic helped spark new conversations about mental health and how it’s treated. Today, more opportunities for online mental healthcare are sprouting up, like virtual therapy sessions and ways to find qualified mental health professionals via companies like BetterHelp, Talkspace, and more.
As technology evolves and advances, you can be sure that this healthcare technology trend will continue to make a positive impact on the healthcare industry and its patients.
4. Digital twins
Digital twins are virtual models, or digital replicas, of real-world systems, processes, tools, and people. In healthcare, digital twins are opening up new opportunities for doctors to better understand and visualize health data, human physiology, hospital environments, and more.
In 2024, this healthcare technology trend will continue to assist medical professionals in building better treatment plans that feature more precise diagnoses.
5. 3D printing
3D printing isn’t just a cool way to bring digital art projects to life — it’s helping save lives too! 3D printing is a healthcare technology trend that’s revolutionizing how doctors develop medical equipment.
Whether it’s surgical instruments or orthopedic implants, 3D printing is proving effective in helping provide areas where medical equipment is hard to come by with the tools they need to provide care to patients. There’s even active research into 3D-printing organs to combat the shortage of organs available for life-saving transplants and lower the cost of those procedures.
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Our expert SEO specialists, copywriters, and digital advertisers will help you increase your website’s rankings when your target audience searches for your treatments online, so you can continuously drive traffic and revenue for your practice, hospital, or business.
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insights from 98,500+ hours of healthcare marketing experience
