Stop Chasing AI “shoulds”: a Focus-First Approach for Health System Marketers
This session is part of
AI in Healthcare Marketing Week
A virtual summit for healthcare marketers and digital strategists from eHealthcare Strategy & Trends
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Presented June 16, 2026 at 1 p.m. Eastern
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Panelists:
Luke Farkas, VP of Innovation & AI, Unlock Health
Daniel Fell, Health Systems Practice Lead, Unlock Health and eHealthcare Strategy & Trends Editorial Advisory Board Member
Joe McMahon, Vice President, Northwell Health’s Enterprise Change Management team
Anne Martino, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Children’s Wisconsin
Moderator:
Wendy Margolin, Contributing Writer, Plain-English Health Care
Session Sponsor:
Hospital marketers are getting hit from every angle with AI advice: “Fix search because of AI,” “personalize everything,” “automate content,” “rebuild creative,” “use agents,” “change the operating model.” It creates an impossible feeling: everything matters, so nothing gets real traction.
This session reframes the problem. The biggest constraint on AI progress is rarely the technology. It is change management. And change management collapses under scattered priorities.
Attendees will learn a practical way to replace random acts of AI with a clear, organization-fit direction. We will show how the “right” AI move depends on two realities most AI guidance ignores: (1) your organization’s natural orientation under uncertainty (what it optimizes for and what risk it is managing) and (2) your current fluency (how ready you are to use AI safely, consistently, and effectively). You will leave with a simple method to align stakeholders, sequence work, and create focus so adoption actually sticks.
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Explain why AI progress is primarily a change-management challenge in hospital marketing and identify the common failure mode of “everything, all at once” prioritization.
- Diagnose their organization’s default AI orientation (what it tends to prioritize and protect) and understand why two health systems can make opposite AI decisions and both be right.
- Assess their team’s AI fluency and translate it into a focused 90-day plan, including what to do now, what to postpone, and what guardrails are required for adoption.
Panelists
Luke Farkas
VP of Innovation & AI
Unlock Health
Luke Farkas leads Innovation & AI at Unlock Health, serving more than 100 hospitals and health systems. He helps clients adopt AI without setting anything on fire, tracks how AI is rewiring the way consumers make healthcare decisions, and is collaborating to rebuild the agency's own operations around AI to keep pushing what's possible for clients. He oversaw the development of an AI Archetype and Fluency Model, which gives the "where do we even start" conversation some structure. His whole career has been in hospital and health system marketing, so he starts from how healthcare marketers spend their days and what hospital clients need.
Daniel Fell
Health Systems Practice Lead
Unlock Health and eHealthcare Strategy & Trends Editorial Advisory Board Member
With over thirty years of healthcare marketing and advertising experience, Danny has worked with some of the largest healthcare brands in the country, including Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Kindred Healthcare, and UnitedHealth Group. Nationally recognized for his writing and speaking on topics ranging from healthcare ratings and rankings to digital health strategies to AI, Danny’s articles have appeared in HealthLeaders, Modern Healthcare, Strategic Health Care Marketing, and the Journal of Healthcare Management, among others. He is the co-author of two books: A Marketer’s Guide to Market Research and Transformative Leadership: Self-Mastery for the New Voice of Business Success, and a member of the editorial advisory board of eHealthcare Strategy and Trends. In 2012, Danny was honored as the very first recipient of the John A. Eudes Vision & Excellence Award for his contributions to digital marketing and thought leadership in healthcare.
Joe McMahon
Vice President
Northwell Health’s Enterprise Change Management team
Joe McMahon is the Vice President of Northwell Health’s Enterprise Change Management team, leading a group of 15 change management professionals supporting Northwell’s largest and most complex transformational initiatives. This includes Northwell’s Epic electronic health record (EHR) implementation and the integration of Nuvance Health into Northwell. Joe advises and collaborates with senior leaders across the organization to design and implement change strategies that drive adoption and deliver measurable results. Prior to Northwell, Joe advised commercial and public sector clients through complex transformation as a consultant at FTI Consulting and Booz Allen Hamilton. Joe holds his B.B.A. in Finance and Marketing from the College of William and Mary.
Anne Martino
Chief Marketing and Communications Officer
Children’s Wisconsin
Anne Martino is the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Children’s Wisconsin, where she is responsible for elevating the brand, driving consumer engagement, and supporting strategic growth through a data-informed, digitally enabled approach. She joined from Endeavor Health in Chicago, where she served as Chief Marketing Officer, leading a large-scale brand transformation and cultural unification following the merger of multiple healthcare organizations into Illinois' third-largest health system.
Previously, Martino held senior leadership roles including System Vice President for Consumer Insights and Strategy at Advocate Aurora Health. Her earlier career includes global leadership positions at NAVTEQ (now HERE Technologies) and major global advertising agencies.
Martino holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
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