December 12, 2024
53% of healthcare providers say increasing patient loyalty is a key driver for personalization, and delivering patient-centered content has never been more important.
However, creating personalized content in an industry with vast data and diverse user needs is a complex challenge. To meet these content demands, a hybrid approach that combines automation, AI, and human insight is essential to deliver relevant, engaging content that truly connects with patients.
Automation already plays a key role in managing content-heavy scenarios, such as patient health information libraries and service line marketing materials, where diverse content needs to be organized and connected around key topics. By streamlining the process of categorizing and linking related content, automation ensures that patients can easily access information, improving usability and engagement.
A hybrid content approach isn’t just about making information available — it’s about making it more accessible and relevant. A technically hybrid way of working, incorporating customer data platforms (CDPs), digital experience platforms (DXPs), automation and GenAI allows healthcare providers to do just that in ways that feel natural and intuitive.
DXP platforms: Supporting rich content experiences
DXPs integrate various tools to deliver personalized digital experiences across multiple channels. By combining content management, personalization and analytics, DXPs help organizations to create seamless, user-centered journeys. These platforms are especially valuable in supporting rich, complex, multi-topic and multi-audience experiences that would be difficult to operationalize otherwise.
Clustered content is one of the ways DXPs support rich experiences. This is where a piece of content is automatically linked to other similar items of interest. Information architecture is often limited, and content automation helps by offering alternative, relevant paths for the user to explore. If a user misses something in the main navigation, automation increases the chance of guiding them to what they’re looking for, making content more accessible and easier to navigate.
Similar automation techniques can also drive abstract personalization. For instance, a user with certain interests or intents sees not just one targeted, hard-wired piece of personalized content, but rather a list of many recent content items that are relevant to them.
Automation roadblocks
Automated systems do come with challenges. Most importantly, they lack a mechanism to understand what the different content pieces are about, beyond the semantic aspects of search. To enable content automation, a human must tag the content according to a defined taxonomy, creating a master list of topic categories for the digital ecosystem.
The process of tagging is time-consuming, and while it is crucial for driving the personalized experiences users expect, it is often a task that gets overlooked or remains incomplete. This incomplete or poor-quality tagging quietly undermines the value of large-scale digital operations, meaning users experience less accurate, relevant and personalized content
The LLM revolution
Enter automation again, this time in the form of LLMs. LLMs are particularly effective at content analysis and manipulation tasks. Through integrated LLMs, DXP platforms can easily taxonomize content for today’s automation needs, driving a higher level of relevance across many-to-many relationships at scale. This capability unlocks significant value, with LLM-powered automation enabling more efficient content supply chains.
For now, a hybrid approach is essential to balance editorial control, segmented personalization and the large volume of human-created content. LLMs enable DXP platforms to deliver richer user experiences without being held back by human availability or attention spans.
While it’s possible that LLMs will eventually take over more content and personalization tasks, current challenges around control, ethics and observability make full automation unlikely. As a result, hybrid systems tend to be more durable and effective over time, allowing organizations to combine the strengths of both human- and AI-driven processes.
The power of hybrid
The demand for personalized content in healthcare is growing, and a hybrid approach that combines automation, AI, and human expertise is key to meeting it effectively. By leveraging technologies like CDPs, DXPs, GenAI, and LLMs, healthcare providers can deliver scalable, engaging experiences that resonate with patients and foster lasting loyalty.
To learn more about the future of consumer healthcare experiences and access insights from industry leaders, download our recent whitepaper, 2025 Emerging Experiences in U.S. Consumer Healthcare.
