touch point podcast

Latest Episodes:

TP446: From Toolset to Mindset: The Evolving Martech Stack Jul 30, 2025

Show notes

As the martech stack continues to evolve, health systems are facing a growing challenge: how to balance enterprise-grade safety and security with the performance demands of modern digital marketing. In this episode, hosts Reed Smith and Chris Boyer tackle that tension head-on, exploring what transformation really looks like when your tools, teams, and tactics need to evolve simultaneously.In the first segment, Reed and Chris unpack the deeper implications of today’s marketing technology decisions. From navigating compliance constraints to reconsidering the value of “speed to campaign,” they ask whether risk tolerance is becoming the silent killer of innovation. In the second segment, they explore how martech fragmentation, misplaced analytics, and slow procurement cycles are creating structural disadvantages for health systems trying to compete on digital experience.To bring in real-world perspectives, this episode includes audio highlights from a recent live panel moderated by Chris Boyer, featuring Aaron Mauck, Tom Armitage (MVP Health), and Raj Venkata (Align). The panel shares unfiltered insights about aligning legal and marketing, moving beyond vanity metrics, and making martech decisions that actually drive transformation.

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TP445: ICYMI: Gaining Insights Into Market Research Jul 23, 2025

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Health systems are increasingly asked to make decisions based on data, but not all research is created equal. In this encore episode, hosts Reed Smith and Chris Boyer revisit the essential differences between market research and marketing research—clarifying how each plays a distinct role in informing healthcare strategies.

They’re joined by Steve Koch of Cast and Hue, who offers a deeper dive into qualitative research methods, including the strengths and limitations of focus groups versus 1:1 interviews. Together, they explore how empathy-driven research can uncover powerful insights that help organizations align their messaging, experiences, and offerings with real patient and consumer needs.

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TP444: Embracing Product Thinking in Health System Marketing Jul 16, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how adopting a product thinking mindset—one rooted in user-centered design, continuous iteration, and outcome-driven strategies—can help healthcare marketers close usability gaps, collaborate cross-functionally, and build digital experiences that evolve with patients’ needs. With nearly half of users reporting frustration with digital health tools, this shift isn’t just timely—it’s necessary.

Guest Brad Muncs, VP of Strategy at Symetris, joins to share real-world lessons on moving beyond the redesign cycle and treating websites, portals, and campaigns as living products. He walks through how this mindset drives business alignment, improves speed to market, and builds digital maturity in step with operational and clinical priorities. From KPIs that matter to frameworks that work, this conversation unpacks why product thinking is becoming the go-to approach for health systems aiming to lead, not lag, in digital transformation.

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TP443: Rethinking the Workforce Crisis With Technology Jul 09, 2025

Show notes

From clinical burnout to back-office understaffing, health systems are navigating a complex workforce reckoning. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how digital technology is being positioned as a lifeline—but question whether we're applying it in the right ways. Rather than viewing automation and AI as quick fixes to fill vacancies, they challenge the industry to consider how tech can be used to fundamentally rethink the design of work itself.

Together, they unpack where digital solutions are truly easing operational strain and improving care, and where they risk simply reinforcing broken systems. Drawing on examples from health systems rethinking job design, and recent studies highlighting employee disengagement and workforce fatigue, the conversation zeroes in on what it really means to build a tech-enabled workforce in 2025. This episode skips the hype and goes straight to the operational heart of one of the industry’s toughest challenges.

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TP442: ICYMI – Omnichannel PX: How Do you Integrate Offline and Online Experiences? Jul 02, 2025

Show notes

With all of the emphasis lately on developing digital experiences, it’s often overlooked that the customer experience transcends online and offline touchpoints. In this episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith discuss the concept of a hybrid CX approach, integrating offline and online experiences, and the role AI has in supporting the new customer journey. Ian Lindsey from Cerecore joins to discuss the important role the call center agent has in improving the overall PX.

Mentions from the Show:

Younger Generations are Feeling Fatigue Hybrid CX: Integrating Offline and Online Experiences Seamlessly Bowstring.tv
Customer Experience in the Age of AI
CereCore brings a healthcare operator heritage to IT services, serving healthcare organizations across the nation and abroad. Learn more at cerecore.net
ebook Diagnosing Your Health System’s IT Support Desk - explaining how to use service level metrics to uncover hidden costs, increase user satisfaction and efficiency
Cerecore support assessment (at no cost and no commitment) to discover where to begin gaining greater efficiency in IT support

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TP441: SEO is Like Golf Now Jun 25, 2025

Show notes

Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how AI is transforming the digital discovery journey — and why traditional SEO tactics may no longer cut it. They discuss:

The Collapse of the Keyword Empire - as AI-generated results increasingly dominate SERPs, healthcare brands must rethink how they show up in search.
Intent, Not Indexing - AI search surfaces content differently, prioritizing context over keywords. This shift forces a new content strategy grounded in helpfulness, not hierarchy.
Search as Experience - with Google rolling out Search Generative Experience (SGE), the very notion of “ranking” is dissolving into curated, AI-assembled summaries.
Adapt or Disappear – what marketers must do today to remain visible in a world where GenAI is the first interaction layer.

Thought leader Carrie Liken joins to unpack the implications of Google’s generative search future, the collapse of zero-click visibility, and what it means for hospitals trying to compete in a rapidly changing landscape.

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TP440: Is Technology the Strategy… or Just the Tool? Jun 18, 2025

Show notes

Chris Boyer and Reed Smith challenge a growing assumption in healthcare: that technology is the strategy. While health systems face urgent pressures—from constrained budgets to rising demand—they’re investing heavily in digital solutions. But are they using technology to truly enable transformation, or simply chasing shiny objects? In this episode, they explore:

Why digital transformation is often confused with digital adoption.
The risk of letting vendor roadmaps dictate your innovation priorities.
How to reposition technology as a flexible enabler—not the end goal.
What health systems can learn from other industries that center business outcomes, not features.

They are also joined by David Norris, CEO of Affineon, who shares why now is the right time for bold innovation. Drawing from his work with both enterprise healthcare systems and startups, he outlines how aligning technology with long-term strategy creates value—not just velocity.

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TP439: The Urgency Gap: Is Healthcare Ready for AI Experience Design? Jun 11, 2025

Show notes

Chris Boyer and Reed Smith break down one of the industry’s most misunderstood trends, separating the headline-worthy buzz from the meaningful, strategic work that marketing teams should actually be focused on. The cover:

AI-Experience Design - defining what it is and why other industries are framing it differently than healthcare.
The Urgency Gap – Most healthcare marketing teams haven’t laid the foundational work (data hygiene, journey design, content mapping) required to even get to AI-experience design.
Consumer Experience Convergence – How AI-experience design will eventually blur with consumer and service design strategies—and what that means for your MarTech roadmap.
AI in the Real World – Why AI tools are only as useful as the systems, standards, and use cases you build around them.

Matt Cyr founder and president of LoopAgency, joins to unpack the concept of AI-experience design and what foundational steps to take today that set the stage for success tomorrow.

Mentions from the Show:

Matt Cyr on LinkedIn
Loop Agency
Marc Needham on LinkedIn: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AI
Teri Sun on LinkedIn: Websites not dead in the age of AI
Carrie Liken on Substack: This Week Google Changed Search Forever
Harnessing AI to Transform Consumer Healthcare Experiences

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TP438: ICYMI TP127 - The Changing Business Models of Health Systems Jun 04, 2025

Show notes

In this encore episode, hosts Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how evolving financial pressures and care delivery shifts are forcing health systems to rethink their business models. From the rise of value-based care to growing partnerships with retail and digital-first players, this conversation breaks down the key factors shaping the industry’s strategic realignment.

Topics include:

The growing divide between traditional hospital revenue streams and emerging care models.
How consumerism and digital health are driving new competitive threats.
Why innovation isn’t just about tech — it’s about new models of care and payment.
What this means for marketing, strategy, and long-term viability.

Originally aired as TP127, this episode includes an expert interview with Jeffrey Carr, industry leader and operational administrator for the Mayo Clinic. This conversation remains highly relevant in today’s environment of disruption, realignment, and strategic reinvention.

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TP437: Performance Marketing Is Dead. Long Live Performance Marketing May 28, 2025

Show notes

Chris Boyer and Reed Smith explore how traditional performance marketing tactics have unraveled — and what must replace them. From cookie deprecation to HIPAA compliance and signal loss across Meta and Google, the rules have changed. But the need for results hasn’t. They discuss:

Why platform-optimized media is no longer reliable
How privacy and regulatory shifts are redefining performance marketing
The rise of media mix modeling and infrastructure-led strategy
What modern measurement looks like when attribution pixels disappear

Aaron Burnett, CEO of Wheelhouse DMG, joins to share how his team rebuilt performance marketing around privacy-first data, internal measurement models, and transparent media planning. He breaks down the critical difference between CDPs and data warehouses, the real-world challenge of earning trust to access EMR data, and how AI is reshaping execution without replacing strategy.

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