The Future of Point of Care

In today’s healthcare landscape, point of care (POC) is undergoing a quiet but powerful transformation. It’s not just about reaching a physician at the right moment anymore, it’s about orchestrating a comprehensive ecosystem that bridges gaps between stakeholders, anticipates patient needs, and enables real-time decisions that drive better outcomes. We’re moving from fragmented, reactive interventions to an era of “total care.” And the implications are massive.

In this first article of our three-part series on the evolving healthcare experience, we’ll explore four core shifts defining the future of point of care.

From Targeted to Total Care

Historically, point of care initiatives have focused on targeted care, which meant identifying a specific physician treating a relevant condition and delivering timely, relevant information. This strategy has driven impressive results, especially for branded content and adherence messaging. But in 2025, that model alone is no longer sufficient.

Today’s shift is toward total care, a holistic, behavior-aware model that encompasses not only who the physician is but also how they behave, when and where they act, and what influences their treatment patterns. It means engaging not just at the prescription point but throughout the care continuum including diagnosis, testing, follow-up, and even post-therapy support.

Total care requires us to step beyond reactive interventions. Instead, we must embed ourselves into the physician’s decision-making workflow and use insights from every touchpoint including EHRs, lab data, refill history, prior authorization interactions, and patient support activity to anticipate the next best action. We’re no longer treating touchpoints as isolated; we’re treating them as interconnected signals in a broader pattern.

AI-Driven Behavioral Adaptation

AI is not the future of POC, it’s the present. But its role is evolving fast. Previously, AI’s utility was largely tied to segmentation and targeting. Now, we’re seeing sophisticated models that not only identify patterns in HCP and patient behavior but also adapt in real time based on those behaviors.

A critical evolution is the use of pre-claims data, information available in the moment of prescribing or ordering, before the insurer has approved, denied, or modified the treatment plan. This data reveals the provider’s true clinical intent, offering a clearer picture of what any specialist intended to do for the patient, versus what the payer ultimately allows. When AI models are built on adjudicated claims data alone, they can inadvertently miss these important nuances such as therapy switches, denials, or step edits that mask original decision-making. Pre-claims data allows for more precise intervention and better alignment with physician intent.

Imagine AI that doesn’t just know a cardiologist has prescribed a specific drug in the past, but predicts how likely that doctor is to deviate based on formulary changes, recent publications, or even peer behavior within the same health system. Or consider patient-level AI that flags when a lapse in care is most likely to occur and prompts a supportive intervention through the provider, care coordinator, or even the patient portal.

These types of adaptive models only reach their full potential when they’re powered by real-time data, especially at that pivotal moment of clinical intent, before external forces reshape the outcome. That’s where pre-claims visibility becomes essential in delivering smarter, behavior-responsive engagement.

The goal here isn’t just prediction, it is orchestration. With AI, content isn’t just delivered; it’s tailored and timed to individual clinician and patient journeys. This transforms POC from a delivery channel into a dynamic behavior engine.

Building Cohesiveness Across Pharma, Market Access, and Data/Analytics

A smarter, AI-driven approach is only as strong as the internal connection behind it. Unfortunately, many organizations are still operating in silos—including medical, commercial, access, and data science—pursuing parallel goals with limited coordination. We are thinking about not only the HCP and patient, but also looking deeper into market access, the data side, and the analytics side—really trying to hone in on every avenue to build more cohesiveness and deliver a true total care approach instead of just point of care. Accessing the healthcare organization’s or health system’s full technology stack is a critical part of this effort. It allows us to align communications, insights, and interventions across teams, including the C-suite decision makers, making sure what we deliver is not just timely, but connected, relevant, and actionable across the entire care continuum.

The next wave of POC effectiveness requires strategic integration across these functions. Market access teams need to inform real-time messaging based on local payer restrictions. Brand marketers must align with analytics to test and iterate messaging based on behavior, not just demographics. And all teams must engage in a unified strategy built around the full patient journey and not just isolated conversions.

We’ve seen that when pharma teams align with analytics and access, they can unlock value well beyond promotional impact. Suddenly, point of care can become a lever for reducing time to therapy, decreasing abandonment rates, and even supporting value-based care initiatives. It’s not just a media channel, it’s an operational advantage.

Accelerating Therapy Start and Sustaining it Long-Term

At the core of every POC innovation is a single, urgent goal: get patients on therapy faster and keep them there, create efficiencies and drive revenue. What’s changed is how we define the levers that influence it.

Efforts previously focused almost entirely on influencing HCP prescribing behavior. Today, that’s just one part of the equation. Payer coverage, EHR workflow interruptions, patient confusion, first fill and refill friction—all of these contribute to delays or drop-off in therapy. Addressing them means moving beyond the HCP touchpoint and enabling cross-functional coordination: intelligent prior authorization messaging, refill reminders, adherence coaching, and lab integration.

Importantly, long-term adherence is no longer treated as an afterthought. We’re seeing pharma brands invest in full-lifecycle engagement strategies and leveraging care team alerts, social determinants of health (SDOH) insights, and predictive drop-off triggers to re-engage patients before they fall through the cracks. In this model, the point of care isn’t a single moment, it’s a longitudinal map.

The evolution of point of care is not just technological. It challenges us to rethink what impact looks like, to realign around behavior, and to build a shared infrastructure that enables smarter, seamless care.

This is about more than just influencing providers. It’s about deeply embedding into their day-to-day. As we’ve seen with leading health systems, the organizations that are winning are the ones that connect insights across market access, therapy initiation, and ongoing engagement, not just those doing “digital outreach.” We’re working with clients who now think of POC not as a media line item, but as a care delivery enabler. That’s a major shift. It also requires a mindset change: from chasing tactics to building systems, from transactional wins to sustained behavioral impact.

In our next article, we’ll explore innovations in content delivery including how content delivery is keeping pace with this transformation, especially through new modalities like AI-powered programmatic messaging, EHR-native outreach, and health system-led patient communication.

The future of POC is already here. It’s smarter. It’s faster. And it’s finally working as one. We’re actively helping organizations operationalize this shift—building smarter, connected systems that align data, access, and content to serve both providers and patients more effectively. The transformation is underway.

By Joey Cohen, Executive Director – EHR Strategy, Flora Management, a health IT consultancy helping organizations navigate the intersection of technology, data, and patient care.