Healthcare organizations face increasing pressure to deliver seamless, consumer-grade digital experiences. Patients expect websites to be intuitive, mobile-optimized, and accessible. They expect transparency, ease of access, and a journey that mirrors retail and consumer tech brands. But too often, healthcare marketing and IT operate in silos—resulting in disjointed strategies, missed deadlines, and underperforming digital tools.
To build digital experiences that actually move the needle—whether that's more appointments, increased portal use, or stronger patient engagement—you need integrated planning and execution between marketing and IT.
When marketing and IT operate in isolation, the patient experience suffers. This misalignment causes real and measurable problems across your digital ecosystem—including inconsistent execution, slower response times, and poor user experience. Below are the most common friction points we see:
Each team has its own priorities, timelines, and tech stacks. And without a shared roadmap, digital success becomes harder to define and deliver.
Despite their differences, marketing and IT teams often want the same things. When you cut through the jargon and department-specific priorities, shared goals become clear—and incredibly powerful when pursued together. Common goals include:
When marketing and IT collaborate from the start, you create a powerful, future-ready system that serves both the organization and the patient.
Creating real alignment between marketing and IT takes more than good intentions. It requires structure, shared ownership, and a clear plan for execution. Here are the key steps we recommend to turn collaboration from a buzzword into a working model.
Before you dive into any website or digital overhaul, define clear roles:
Bring both departments to the table and co-author a governance model that includes:
Your website isn’t just a marketing tool—it’s a mission-critical platform. Align your roadmap with both teams, outlining:
Use collaborative planning tools (like Airtable, Jira, or Monday.com) to ensure transparency and accountability.
Marketing cares about:
IT cares about:
The path forward: Agree on a balanced dashboard that reflects both sets of goals and is reported monthly or quarterly.
Nothing aligns cross-functional teams like real data. Ten Adams often starts projects with deep, real-time research that utilizes 16 methodologies and includes tasks such as:
This research becomes the North Star that marketing and IT can rally around—minimizing subjective debates and building around evidence, not opinion.
Modern content management systems must empower marketers without compromising IT control. Platforms like Optimizely, Sitecore, or WordPress VIP offer:
Ten Adams recommends a CMS that supports marketing agility while meeting the technical demands of a complex healthcare environment. Depending on the scope of the project at hand, our team can prepare a CMS Matrix giving you a thorough evaluation of each of your options, noting favorability and usability for each end user group.
Misalignment often stems from a lack of shared language. Marketing speaks in campaigns and personas; IT speaks in platforms and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
Invest in cross-training:
When teams speak each other’s language, collaboration becomes easier and more proactive.
Organizational buy-in matters. CMOs, CIOs, and VPs need to model partnership:
A culture of collaboration must be led from the top down and reinforced by results.
The next generation of digital healthcare experiences will demand even deeper collaboration between marketing and IT. To stay competitive and consumer-centric, health systems must be ready to integrate AI, personalization, and predictive analytics into every digital touchpoint. Create a plan to get ready for:
All of these require joint strategy, cross-departmental access, and clear communication.
Ten Adams specializes in brand, web, and growth strategy exclusively for healthcare. We’ve spent decades helping marketing and IT teams collaborate around:
Our approach is deeply collaborative and grounded in healthcare operations. We don’t just design beautiful sites—we build systems that work for both marketing and IT.
Digital transformation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens when marketing and IT align around a common goal: building a better experience for patients.
If your teams are still working in silos, it’s time to build a bridge.
Want help mapping that bridge? Let's talk.
We’ll help you unify strategy, clarify ownership, and create a digital roadmap that gets results, together.