Speed Creates Impact: Key Takeaways from the AdLab Point of Care Panel

Point of care has been building its reputation in healthcare marketing for decades, but something shifted at AdLab this year: the conversation stopped being about potential and started being about what's actually working. 

That shift was front and center at the third panel of the day, moderated by Jen Loga, Head of Client Analytics at DeepIntent, who was joined on stage by Kate Calabrese, SVP of Digital at PatientPoint; Jordan Galbraith, SVP of Programmatic at Publicis Health Media; and Ari Wexler, Group SVP of Engagement Strategy at CMI Media Group. What followed was a candid, fast-moving conversation about data, programmatic activation, and why point of care is having its moment right now.

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Point of Care Is No Longer a Standalone Channel

For years, point of care occupied its own lane in the media plan — powerful and proven but largely siloed. The panelists agreed that era is ending. The combination of a more activated patient population, rising health misinformation online, and the need for brand-safe, contextually relevant environments is pushing point of care toward the center of integrated multi-channel strategies.

"There are very few platforms or categories or channels in our industry that are both proven and also unlock completely untapped growth," said Kate Calabrese. "And that's really where point of care and PatientPoint uniquely sit today."

That growth, the panel stressed, requires a shift in mindset. "It's breaking the idea that point of care is this siloed standalone channel," Calabrese added. "Really starting to think of it as how it can be more integrated and not fully looked at as standalone."

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Data Strategy Comes First

Programmatic has opened the door to a more dynamic, flexible approach to point of care buying. Rather than replacing traditional direct buys, it's creating a new layer of precision and speed. But panelists were quick to caution that technology alone isn't the answer; the real work is building the data strategy to support it.

"That's the beauty of programmatic," said Jordan Galbraith. "It's going live quickly, being nimble." But he and Ari Wexler were both clear-eyed about what's required underneath. "You have to talk programmatic and all biddable, not as marketing strategy, but as data strategy," said Wexler. "And do you really have a data strategy that you're committing to?"

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Rethink Who You're Reaching and Where

One of the panel's most provocative themes was the need to move beyond the traditional target list. Claims data, labs, and third-party data sets are revealing prescribing and patient patterns that older lists have long overlooked, including which non-specialist offices are actually driving meaningful script volume.

"No pun intended, but we need to flip the script," said Calabrese. "What do we know about the audiences? What do we know about the patients in that waiting room, regardless of what the physician is doing?" Galbraith echoed this from his own experience: "It could be not even a specialist. Say you’re early-stage eczema. 30 to 35% of writers of that first topical are GPs. That could be just not thought of from the HCP marketer's perspective. They’re going after the bigger writers.”

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Test, Learn, Scale

Across all three panelists, one theme rang loudest: this is the year to commit to something, prove it out, and build from there. Ari Wexler explained: "You have to deconstruct what behaviors you're truly trying to change and commit to that, and then correlate that to your targeting, correlate that to testing what messages are going to resonate the most, and then do that in a way by which you can start small and then scale."

That kind of agility, the group agreed, demands tighter collaboration between strategy and activation teams. "Strategy has to lead the correlation between marketing and data," said Wexler. "It can't be a reach and frequency play."

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What Comes Next

The convergence of programmatic flexibility, richer data signals, and AI-powered personalization tools is making it possible to engage patients and physicians in ways that were simply out of reach even a year ago. As Calabrese put it: "I don't think we would have been at AdLab a year ago with this much to share. And that's how quickly this space is evolving."

The work ahead is less about convincing people point of care matters and more about building the infrastructure, strategically and organizationally, to make it perform. For the teams willing to lean in, test boldly, and align across functions, the opportunity is substantial.

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Curious for more ways to maximize HCP engagement? Check out more AdLab takeaways here.

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