Picture two people, both looking at screens. One is standing in a coffee line, scrolling on their phone. The other is seated in a doctor’s office, a few minutes before a long-awaited appointment, staring up at a screen. The two are ready to take in very different information, and a marketer can now reach both programmatically.
Advertisers and marketers all agree on the value of reaching relevant audiences at scale. The harder question is what comes next.
How do you earn attention and drive real engagement in a crowded media landscape? In healthcare, that answer starts with understanding how much audiences have changed, beginning with how people think about their wellness.
Health and wellness have gone mainstream
Health and wellness have moved from vague interest to everyday behavior. According to McKinsey’s “Future of Wellness” research, 84% of consumers now say wellness is a top priority in their lives.
More people than ever are prioritizing their health and wellness, and as they navigate it, establishing trust and efficacy with them is critical. People want to know a brand is credible and that it’s right for them.
PatientPoint’s Patient Confidence Index shows where people place trust. We found that providers remain the No. 1 trusted source for health information, and despite the growth of search, social, and AI tools, the share of people who say their doctor is their go-to source has risen year over year.
Trust in providers extends even further. A 2026 Talker Research study found that 77% of consumers consider a health brand they encounter in a doctor’s office worth trusting.
That is why the environment plays such an influential role. Context has always carried strong value, and as media consumption habits keep evolving, it will play an increasingly critical role in decisioning. Few environments are built around a health-focused frame of mind as completely as the doctor’s office.
What makes the doctor’s office stand out
As health and wellness continue to influence everyday decisions, the next evolution of programmatic will be defined not just by how precisely we reach audiences, but by how well we understand the context in which we reach them.
People arrive at the doctor’s office with an appointment and a specific purpose. Their health is on their minds, care happens down the hall, and the setting is among the most trusted in a person’s life.
The waiting room is a key touchpoint in the health journey. PatientPoint found that 94% of patients recall the health and treatment information they see on waiting room screens. It is where people prepare for the conversation they are about to have with their doctor, and brands want to be top of mind going into it.
For pharma brands advertising programmatically in the doctor’s office, health data such as diagnoses and prescriptions, along with specialty and geography, help identify the waiting rooms where a brand’s audience is most likely to be found. A brand with a treatment for a specific condition can plan around the locations where that condition is most prevalent and reach people with relevant messaging.
What this means for your media plan
Now that the doctor’s office can be bought programmatically, it fits into existing workflows, with room to adjust timing and frequency as a campaign unfolds. The result is a stronger omnichannel strategy that adds reach among your target audiences when they are in a receptive, health-focused frame of mind and a health decision is being made.
According to a Veeva Crossix case study, people who saw both digital and doctor’s office ads were 200X more likely to convert than those who saw digital alone. That reflects what has been seen among brands running programmatic both elsewhere and in the doctor’s office.
Programmatic access lets advertisers and marketers reach high-value moments at scale, and it’s why doctor’s office advertising has earned a key seat in the programmatic mix.
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Kate Calabrese is a seasoned digital media executive with a track record of building scalable products and platforms that drive revenue growth. A programmatic subject matter expert, she has spent her career across both the agency and publisher sides of the industry.