For more than 20 years people have relied on search engines to help them find health information, with data published earlier this year showing that 63.29% of internet users sought health information online in the UK in 2020. It’s no surprise then that private healthcare providers rely on online advertising and strong search engine optimisation (SEO) to reach potential customers.
However, since the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022, patients are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) search alongside Google searches to find health information. AI search aims to give users a more personalised and conversational experience. To do this ChatGPT and other generative AI models heavily prioritise earned media to source the content they choose to highlight alongside the mixture of licensed data, publicly available medical texts, academic papers, guidelines, and other reference materials they have been trained on for health information. The rationale is that earned media provides external validation of a company’s reputation, products, and expertise, which AI systems then use to generate authoritative and hopefully accurate answers.
As AI search gains ground, should healthcare providers upgrade their comms strategy to be more heavily weighted towards PR, so they are more visible to patients looking for services and health information via this route?
To answer this question, SAY has carried out its own research into two disease areas, migraine and endometriosis, to look at how AI and Google search sources differ when asked typical patient questions and what implication these differences have for health providers trying to reach people with these and other conditions.
AI vs Google search for general health queries
When asked ‘I think I have endometriosis / migraine, can you tell me more about the condition’, ChatGPT doesn’t share its sources. However, when prompted by us it reveals its citations for endometriosis to be roughly two thirds websites including from trusted sources such as the NHS, patient support groups and clinics, and one third news articles, particularly from key media titles such as The Guardian and the Financial Times and medical journals. By contrast, a Google search relies solely on website sources for its first page of options, and the Google AI summary relies on a similar range of websites.
When Google and ChatGPT are asked ‘how can I manage endometriosis/migraine’, again sources are not included for the latter’s answer. When prompted, just over half of the sources for endometriosis are websites from the likes of NICE, the NHS, professional organisations, and hospital trusts and clinics and just under half are from medical news sites such as PubMed and Medscape, medical journals, and national news titles such as The Times and the BBC. Endometriosis news stories featured include those about newly approved medical treatments and on reports highlighting diagnosis delays. Google draws on websites for its results which are similarly used by Google AI, with the latter also including an article from Medical News Today.
Key considerations:
How can healthcare providers increase their chances of their material being referenced in AI searches that answer typical patient health queries? In our view they will need:
- Bite size, organised content that is discoverable by AI bots to answer common patient questions
- Credible high-quality content e.g., patient education pages, blog posts, treatment guides) referenced to authoritative medical sources that provides the latest recommendations, treatment guidelines, or disease statistics
- Patient-friendly language (see our blog on the importance of correct and easy-to-understand language when raising awareness of a disease) that is simple and not overly technical
- Strategic media outreach to secure mentions, interviews, and quotes in high-authority news outlets and industry reports.
PR campaigns that deliver authentic content via regular news coverage and thought leadership from recognised experts plus publications in relevant journals will clearly have an impact given AI’s tendency to prioritise earned media coverage as sources for its recommendations. PR can therefore both drive the earned media coverage that will ensure their brands are included in the answers AI searches provide and help to further train the AI models to give more thorough answers, since studies show they are not yet accurate enough to be a standalone tool for medical advice.
AI vs Google search for product queries
One common way people use ChatGPT is for researching and buying products. When we asked both ChatGPT and Google about the best products for endometriosis or migraine, Google leads with ads, followed by websites, with discussions and forums relegated to the bottom of the first page. By contrast ChatGPT relies much more heavily on patient opinion and real-world feedback, prioritising social media and patient and community forums such as Reddit and Healthunlocked alongside reviews of products published in the media and websites that sell suitable products.
Key considerations:
But how can healthcare providers ensure their goods and services feature in AI search recommendations in response to patient questions about products? Our advice is to
- Ensure your content can be discovered, surfaced, and clearly cited and linked by, for example, not opting out of OpenAI’s search crawler
- Provide content that includes the general factors ChatGPT looks for such as price, customer ratings, and ease of use
- Make sure ChatGPT can also find relevant information (e.g., price, product description) via third-party providers and other third-party content (e.g., reviews)
- Check that your PR agency is regularly confirming which products journalists are planning to review so that you can offer your product to them for consideration
- Include influencer mapping and engagement within your communications strategy to increase your chance of your product being reviewed by them
- Examine your product reviews on public websites since ChatGPT may also create product review summaries based on these to highlight common user likes and dislikes about a product
- Regularly check what ChatGPT is picking up about your products. If you spot an error, let OpenAI know by submitting feedback.
AI vs Google search for clinic queries
When prompted, ‘what are the best clinics in the UK for endometriosis’, Google offers a mix of NHS and private clinics, plus Top Doctors UK and a professional group, the British Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy. Google AI includes a similar mix but also includes an individual specialist. ChatGPT, meanwhile, uses media (e.g. BBC) and social media (e.g. Reddit) as well as websites to inform its answer.
We also asked ChatGPT why it had chosen particular clinics. For migraine it told it focused on clinics and consultants with established reputations in the specialty that appear consistently in medical directories, NHS specialist centres, peer-reviewed publications, and patient communities. It looked beyond general neurology clinics to identify headache subspecialists offering specialised treatments. It also cross-checked with patient reviews and migraine community discussions (e.g., Reddit, Migraine Trust forums). Finally, as we know that location is a key factor when patients choose providers, it also looked at geographic and access considerations.
For endometriosis, ChatGPT told us it recommended clinics because they are BSGE-accredited, multidisciplinary, experienced in complex surgery, geographically spread across the UK, and highly regarded by both clinicians and patients. To determine the latter, it chose centres that are consistently referenced in NHS Trust announcements (i.e. about specialist services being accredited) and news coverage (e.g. The Guardian, BBC, FT) and patient experiences (e.g. Reddit and Endometriosis UK support groups).
Key considerations:
With these factors in mind, how can healthcare providers ensure their clinics feature in AI search recommendations in response to patient questions? Our advice is to
- Have strong, clear, structured information that ChatGPT can find online, including clinic opening hours, your services, phone number, and reviews
- Publish helpful patient content (blog posts, FAQs, treatment guides) to make your clinic more visible to web crawlers. This increases the chances ChatGPT will surface your site when asked for local recommendations
- Build awareness and visibility of both your clinic’s services and its consultants
- Raise and amplify the profile of your consultants and other expert voices via thought leadership and regular earned media coverage for your clinic and its services as part of your PR strategy
- Encourage satisfied patients to write public reviews on Google, Yelp, and healthcare-specific sites to increase credibility. ChatGPT is more likely to mention clinics with strong third-party reviews.
While we asked ChatGPT what its sources were and reviewed them, a typical user may not and will likely take the results as they are. So, we were relieved to see that ChatGPT did prioritise trusted healthcare sources within its search results for endometriosis and migraine, giving us confidence that the healthcare information it supplies is accurate. Given our agency’s specialism in media relations, it was also good to see how heavily ChatGPT uses credible third-party sources like news articles and expert commentary published in reputable media to identify information rather than just relying on a brand’s owned content.
Strategic PR and comms campaigns in the new era of AI search
Alongside AI-optimised owned content, getting featured in reputable publications will be increasingly important for a brand’s visibility and credibility in AI-generated search results, making a solid PR and comms strategy from a specialist healthcare agency even more important with the shift from Google to AI search.
SAY Communications is a healthcare communication agency that is uniquely placed to help you develop strategic PR and comms campaigns in the new era of AI search. Get in touch with our team at hello@saycomms.co.uk to learn more.
For more insights, sign up to the SAY Healthcare newsletter.
For advice on how to appear in Google AI Overviews, see this guest blog from SAY’s SEO partner Yaser UK.
Photo by Zulfugar Karimov on Unsplash
