Point-of-Care Marketing: Reaching Providers When It Matters Most
Written by: Steve Thomas, Director Solutions Management, Veradigm
Online marketing is booming in the medical sector. Digital advertising in the U.S. is projected to reach $450 billion by 2028, and pharma and healthcare companies are the second biggest spenders. However, questions remain over whether messaging reaches the right people, the providers who prescribe treatments and the patients who benefit from them.
Point-of-care marketing helps ensure advertising reaches your target audiences. Here, we’ll define point-of-care marketing in healthcare, how it benefits biopharma and medical device companies, and tips for successful implementation.
What is Point-of-Care Marketing?
“Point of care” is when a patient interacts with a healthcare professional in a healthcare setting to receive care. Point-of-care marketing happens when a patient, caregiver, and/or the healthcare provider receives messaging during their interaction. For example, a nurse may hand a patient literature on living with a newly diagnosed condition during an in-office visit. Similarly, a primary care physician may discuss medications with a patient via telehealth.
Messaging delivered at the point of care can initiate discussions between patients and providers about improving patients’ health outcomes. Point-of-care marketing is highly effective because most patients trust healthcare providers, and this method of communication can empower patients to manage their care proactively. As in other types of healthcare marketing, regulatory agencies hold digital healthcare messaging to high standards.
Pamphlets to Point-of-Care: The Evolution of Healthcare Marketing
Healthcare marketing is a relatively modern concept in the U.S. Pharma companies first marketed treatments to physicians in the 1950s, when the systematized health insurance industry began. In the 1960s, marketers used print materials and public relations to spread messaging. Public relations continued to rise as a marketing channel in the 1970s, and marketers started advertising on billboards, television, and radio.
By the 1980s, healthcare marketing took a more prominent place in biopharma and medical device companies. Advertising budgets grew, and marketers added direct marketing and personal sales into their marketing mix. In the 1990s, consumers started searching the internet for health information. Healthcare marketers adapted by focusing on relational, social, and digital marketing. Market research gained prominence, and direct-to-consumer healthcare marketing began.
In the 2000s, healthcare marketers found innovative ways to reach customers through market segmentation, target marketing, media and community relations, customer services, and relationship management. Social media took its place in marketing channels in the 2010s. During the pandemic, marketers had to carefully review messaging and focus on refining online communications.
Today, healthcare marketing is crucial to helping biopharma companies thrive amidst rising drug prices and consumer unease. Healthcare and pharmaceutical spending on digital advertising is expected to reach almost $20 billion by the end of 2024.
Making the most of every dollar is possible with smart technology—data-driven analysis made possible by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models. Healthcare marketers can use data to pinpoint target markets and deliver highly effective point-of-care marketing to providers on the platforms they use daily.
Benefits of Digital Point-of-Care Marketing
Targeted Messaging Improves Advertising Accuracy
Broad-spectrum, relatively unfocused marketing tactics such as billboards and TV advertisements may not effectively gain the attention of busy healthcare providers. However, healthcare providers spend a lot of time interacting with electronic health records (EHRs). One study found that, on average, physicians use EHRs for 16 minutes per patient encounter. Advertising in a safe and compliant way on EHR platforms puts messaging in front of physicians when they are best poised to receive it.
Through Veradigm Digital Health Media, biopharma marketers can display messaging on a separate screen in a healthcare provider’s EHR. The solution uses de-identified data to find the right providers to target for the campaign. For example, a pharmaceutical company marketing a medication for major depressive disorder (MDD) used Veradigm Digital Health Media to target the primary care providers most likely to prescribe MDD medications. The solution targeted providers based on prescribing history, or use of specific diagnostic codes.
Point-of-care EHR marketing reaches providers when they are most receptive to the messaging while still following applicable U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) guidelines for pharmaceutical advertising. While messaging can’t be displayed during the prescribing stage, it can be displayed at other points throughout the EHR workflow, including:
- Login
- Provider workflow
- Patient assessment
- Patient diagnosis
Broadening Messaging Reach
Compared with traditional sales methods, such as print materials and on-site sales meetings, digital advertising can scale without exponentially increasing costs. Digital point-of-care marketing crosses geographic barriers to reach large audiences. With Veradigm Digital Health Media, marketers can access any provider within the Veradigm Network. This extended reach is even more valuable because it is not random: Marketers can specifically focus upon those providers most likely to benefit from their messaging.
Extending your messaging reach is more difficult with small teams. One of Veradigm’s clients, a pharma company selling a drug to treat hypertriglyceridemia, wanted to increase its market share in a highly competitive medication class. However, the team had a small field sales force compared to competitors, limiting person-to-person promotion.
They collaborated with Veradigm Digital Health Media to launch a campaign targeting providers who often prescribe patients diagnosed with hypertriglyceridemia.1
Improving Patient Health Outcomes
Messaging delivered to providers at the point of care can encourage them to start important conversations with patients. Discussions create awareness of health information and help patients take a more proactive approach to caring for their health. Involving patients in their care has been linked to positive health outcomes, including reduced hospital admissions, improved efficiency and quality of health services, and better quality of life.
Displaying messaging during the clinical workflow can also increase healthcare providers’ access to relevant information. Busy healthcare providers may not have the time to research all available treatments. This applies especially to primary care physicians, who often treat many conditions and illnesses ranging from mental illness to chronic disease. Point-of-care marketing puts information directly in front of providers when they need to know it and allows them to focus on patient care.
4 M’s of Point-of-Care Marketing Success
Finding the best healthcare digital marketing software can feel overwhelming with all the programs available today. Here are a few tips to begin your search for a point-of-care solution that meets your needs and goals.
Maintain Compliance
Unlike general advertising, pharma and medical device advertising is highly regulated. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) final rule 21 CFR 202.1(e)(1) recently came into effect, which provides specific guidelines for clear, conspicuous, and neutral biopharma promotional messaging. To protect healthcare data, digital marketing must also follow the HHS Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules. Following the rules is essential to avoiding fees and other penalties.
Veradigm Digital Health Media is a HIPAA-compliant tool designed to meet regulatory agencies’ guidelines for point-of-care marketing. As the first EHR marketing solution to become a member of the Point of Care Marketing Association (POCMA), Veradigm has committed to ethical point-of-care marketing practices that benefit patients and healthcare providers alike. POCMA members actively work toward establishing and implementing best practices for healthcare point-of-care marketing.
Maximize Provider Attention
Putting your messaging in front of the right providers at the right time requires access to those providers. When choosing a point-of-marketing tool, consider which vendor can advertise to your target audience’s EHR system. For example, biopharma companies marketing glaucoma medication may want to target ophthalmologists and family physicians—the healthcare providers who are more likely to prescribe the drug.
Not all point-of-care marketing tools have equal coverage to healthcare providers, so researching the types of healthcare providers available through a solution is essential.
Measure Performance
Tracking point-of-care marketing performance helps marketers find opportunities for improvement and justify spending to company stakeholders. Marketers can use specific, measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) alongside analytic methods to test the results of each campaign. Point-of-care marketing KPIs could include reaching a certain number of qualified leads or increasing impression rates by a certain percentage.
Point-of-care marketing performance measurement methods typically include test vs. control, which compares KPIs before and after campaign exposure, and marketing mix modeling, which tracks metrics over time to show each channel’s contributions to outcomes. POCMA recommends using rigorous data analytics when tracking KPIs to avoid inaccurate results and incorporating point-of-care in broader omnichannel measurement plans.
Marketing Mix
Using point-of-care EHR marketing alongside other tactics maximizes messaging exposure. For example, a large pharmaceutical company contracted the marketing agency to create an omnichannel marketing strategy. KINESSO worked with Veradigm and technology company PulsePoint to create highly targeted messaging for healthcare providers both at home and on their EHRs.
The strategy included multiple channels all coming together into a single platform for real-time reporting. And it worked. The campaign delivered a 296% increase in prescriptions over seven months for endocrinologists and primary care physicians and an 86% increase over four months for nephrologists and primary care physicians.2
Heightening the Impact of Point-of-Care Marketing
Positioning pharma and medical device messaging at the point of care ensures products are top-of-mind for the people who prescribe them. To improve impact further, consider diversifying promotional messaging with coupons or informational messaging, such as sharing new clinical research. At certain points in the provider workflow, interactive messaging like knowledge tests may also increase provider engagement.
Interested in point-of-care marketing for your pharma or medical device brand? Explore Veradigm EHR Point of Care Marketing platform.
References:
- Case Study: Agency Drives Significant Growth in Prescribing Behavior. On File 2025.
- Case Study: Agency Drives Significant Growth in Prescribing Behavior. On File 2025.