Tag Archive for: examples of PR in healthtech

Where using internet services and social mobility in healthcare services was a personal choice in the past, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic made it clear that it is now a necessity for both consumers and healthcare providers, making healthtech one of the fastest-growing emerging industries.

Thousands of healthtech companies usher in innovations and cutting-edge technologies every day. For such fast-growing coverage needs, health tech reporters must proactively illuminate the business strategies of the modern healthcare giants and dig into new research to create a detailed reporting piece of the healthtech industry.

This intersection of technology and health quickly evolves, attracting billion-dollar investments worldwide. So healthtech PR is always looking up to energetic and determined healthtech journalists for press coverage. They cover the latest trends and deliver deep insights and compelling stories on the healthtech industry.

Here are ten healthtech journalists to follow on Twitter. They will keep you informed of what’s around the corner and clearly show where the healthtech industry is heading next.

1.    Christina Farr

Christina Farr is a former healthtech reporter for CNBC, Reuters News, Fast Company, and other publications.

Christina is now a health tech investor and a principal at OMERS Ventures, a global early-stage venture cap. She was born and raised in London and graduated from University College London and Stanford University.

Christina Farr is the author of Second Opinion, a healthtech newsletter that publishes various trends revolving around pharmacy tech, women’s health, etc. It also features interviews with investors, executives, and healthcare founders. Christina applies her experience as a healthtech journalist and investor to dive deep into the world of healthtech news.

 

Her breakthrough works, and exciting healthtech stories have appeared in numerous publishing companies, including the New York Times, Bay Citizen, and Daily Telegraph. Christina frequently appears at health and technology conferences as a speaker and featured expert on ABC, Reuters TV, and others.

Her Twitter is @chrissyfarr, where she actively tweets about the latest healthtech trends and news.

2.    Nick Triggle

Nick Triggle is a health correspondent at BBC. His reporting mainly focuses on NHS, and he writes extensive articles demonstrating how the UK deals with challenges around social care and health inequalities.

Such articles, such as on mental health and the NHS crisis, target the issues of how healthcare provided by NHS is suffering a blow and dealing with many challenges like the aging population and obesity.

Many people highly respect Nick Triggle for being one of the most perspective health journalists as he gives equal and enough attention to the rising issues and trends related to healthcare and NHS. He digs deep into the matters revolving around health reforms, new acts, and the effects of the pandemic and other dangerous challenges for NHS with a much-needed context and data visualization.

Nick was awarded the “Blogger of the Year” by Medical Journalists’ Association in 2015. He is the lead journalist behind the breakthrough BBC projects, The NHS crisis – decades in the making, and the ‘Fantastic’ care calculator.

Nick Triggle highlights the pressing health stories in the UK on his Twitter account (he goes by @NickTriggle). He partakes in the debates and conversations that discuss national response to these challenges. His tweets are an up-to-date source for receiving the latest and authoritative views on NHS, social care, and public health.

Nick Trigger also previously worked on the Gerry Robinson TV NHS documentaries.

3.    Laura Donnelly

Laura Donnelly is a health editor at The Telegraph Media Group. She has written several well-researched articles in The Telegraph, which focus on the healthcare services in the UK concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.

Laura Donnelly has won many awards for her energetic work on various topics, such as the NHS crisis, in-depth investigations, and exciting stories that bring research and scientific breakthroughs to her readers’ lives. Her latest works on NHS waiting lists and NHS strikes highlight the devastating effects on healthcare services in the UK.

Laura Donnelly channels the same energy and passion into her Twitter account, sharing her opinions and turning complex healthtech news into offbeat news and stories. You can find her on Twitter as @lauradonnlee.

Laura has worked at The Telegraph for more than 15 years and also has editorial experience at the Health Service Journal. Her past roles as a news editor and health journalist have made her one of the vital healthtech journalists to follow on Twitter.

Laura Donnelly covers the latest trends in biomedical technologies and vaccine developments. She has an in-depth understanding of the healthcare system, and thus, her Twitter account is an excellent place to receive critical analysis and reporting on the latest healthtech news.

4.    Erin Brodwin

Erin Brodwin is an award-winning health tech reporter at Axios. Erin’s hard-hitting stories and newsletters are all focused on digital health, health ambitions and where the world’s technology giants are heading towards, and venture capital.

Erin Brodwin is a California-based healthtech journalist who graduated from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York after receiving her Master’s in health and science reporting.

Erin Brodwin is one the most dedicated and passionate health journalists who actively contribute to the world of health and science publications. She has experience with some of the biggest names in science, health, and technology magazines. Erin has contributed many stories to Scientific American, which discusses the roles of AI tools in healthcare and clinical diagnosis, advertising campaigns that harm teenage psychology and health, chemical weapons, and much more.

Erin has also written for Insider Inc. and has broken several breakthrough news on health and technology stories and the latest trends. She has been a healthtech correspondent at STAT, covering many topics ranging from digital health, the role of key healthtech players like Facebook and Google, and challenges to people’s health that arose due to the misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Erin Brodwin is one of the healthtech journalists you must look for on Twitter. You can find her as @erinbrodwin.

5.    Andrew Gregory

Andrew Gregory is an award-winning British journalist and health editor for The Guardian. He received three British Press Awards for his high-impact journalism and his long and dedicated role as a health reporter exposing racial health inequalities in the UK.

The works of Andrew Gregory have captured a lot of attention by bringing such healthcare issues to light and produced a wave of fury and determination in public regarding healthcare inequalities.

Andrew has also won a Guild of Health Writers Award, a British Journalism Award, and many other nominations and awards.

Andrew chooses the most impactful and gripping healthcare topics to write about. The power of his words to resonate with the readers makes him one of the highly sought-after healthcare journalists. His exciting stories focus on the role of technology in healthcare, and he also shares his direct and honest opinions about the latest trends and news in healthtech in his breakthrough works.

Andrew Gregory has written many articles on the role of healthcare technologies like Artificial Intelligence and how they can help physicians and surgeons refine and improve their healthcare services. He uses his Twitter account to shed some light on his articles within the 280-character limit and then links the complete articles on The Guardian. You can find him on Twitter as @andrewgregory.

6.    Natasha Singer

Natasha Singer is a health technology reporter at The New York Times and passionately writes about topics like consumer privacy and education technology. She dedicates her work to the extensive and essential ways healthtech companies, their technology, and tools impact healthcare services and job opportunities.

Natasha Singer is currently attending The KSJ Fellowship Program. Most of her stories published for The New York Times are about tackling the mental health crisis in children and teens and its direct relation to the use of social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. She has also received many awards for covering and reporting online tracking.

Natasha Singer highlights the intersection of science, society, and technology, focusing on behavioral advertising, health, and education.

Natasha Singer was also a correspondent for Outside Magazine before coming to the Times. There, she published important stories about wildlife conservation and biodiversity. Her Twitter account is a great place to receive a deep understanding of these topics, as Natasha actively posts about her works there. You can find her at @natashanyt.

7.    Kat Lay

Kat Lay is a health editor at The Times. She mainly explores stories and trends related to new advances in research studies and clinical trials and highlights the healthcare issues within NHS.

Kat Lay picks up the most exciting topics about public health in UK and NHS staff. She also highlights the role of healthtech in improving the clinical diagnosis of serious diseases, such as how they hold trials for AI programs to check for breast cancer in NHS patients and how Milton Keynes Trust has now adopted healthtech innovations to deliver cutting-edge care.

Kat Lay also received a Medical Journalists Association award for her news story that covered sexual harassment in surgical training and surgeries. Kat Lay joined The Times in 2012 as a graduate trainee, and since then, she has created a name for herself as one of the most well-deserved and dedicated healthtech journalists.

Follow her on Twitter at @katlay.

8.    Amit Katwala

Amit Katwala is an award-winning science and technology journalist. After studying Experimental Psychology and graduating from Oxford University, Amit pursued his career as a writer and editor at several famous publications like Economist and Science Uncovered.

Currently, Amit Katwala is a writer and editor at WIRED, an essential source of breakthrough information regarding science, technology, and its effects on society. Amit has also written two books, Tremors in the Blood and The Athletic Brain, in which he discussed the impact of science and technology on the human brain.

Amit Katwala contributes great stories to WIRED based on his exciting research on health, science, and technology. He also shares his opinions about the collision of technology with culture on his Twitter account, and you can find him at @amitkatwala.

9.    Zaria Gorvett

Zaria Gorvett is an award-winning senior journalist at BBC Future. She mostly tells compelling stories about health, medicine, psychology, history, etc. Zaria is an aspiring health journalist whose articles were featured on Chartbeat’s list of the most engaging stories of 2021 and 2022.

Zaria Gorvett is a London-based science writer. After graduating, she worked for environmental charities in Tobago and Greece while earning two Master’s degrees.

Now Zaria is one of the essential healthcare journalists as she frequently writes about science topics ranging from COVID-19 vaccine doses to “untranslatable illnesses.”

Zaria Gorvett has also written for Scientific American and Asian Scientist, two of the most popular magazines highlighting worldwide health, science, and technology issues.

You can find Zaria on Twitter as @ZariaGorvett, and if you are interested in fascinating stories about healthcare and other related topics, she is the one to follow.

10. Jessica Kim Cohen

Jessica Kim Cohen is a precision medicine reporter at GenomeWeb, an online science magazine covering recent trends and compelling stories about molecular biology.

Jessica Kim Cohen writes about the latest research studies and developments in genetically targeted treatments.

Ever since the pandemic, there has been a new emphasis on the emerging industry of telehealth, many of which are on the pre-IPO track. And while telehealth VC investment is expected to stay flat in 2023, the industry received an exciting $29.1 billion in funding in 2021, mostly for consumer tech services and apps, but B2B is also on solid footing. Regardless of funding levels, how has healthtech PR helped hypergrowth brands thrive through the disruptive business environment?

 

Hims/Hers HealthTech and Consumer Goods Maximizes Growth with PR

  • $233 million raised
  • First day of trading: Jan. 21, 2021
  • SPAC proceeds: $280 million
  • SPAC valuation: $1.6 billion, according to Forbes

Hims/Hers operates two websites offering medical services specific to men (Hims) and women (Hers). To catch the attention of VCs and to eventually go public in 2021,  healthtech PR helped hypergrowth tech brand Hims/Hers maximize their most opportune moments. With a total funding amount of $233 million and a successful SPAC IPO, Hims/Hers PR was strategic and purpose-driven, which helped it create consumer trust and make them a media darling at the right time.

Authentic Purpose-Driven PR for HealthTech

In 2021, Hims/Hers followed AirBnB in offering services to displaced Afghan refugees in the wake of the U.S. military’s sudden departure from Afghanistan. Not only did this create trust for their customers, many of whom expect brands to be socially impactful, but they also leveraged tech-based media such as TechCrunch to report the news and capture investors’ imaginations. It may have caught the attention of Walgreens, who missed the chance to contribute when their competitor, Walmart beat them to the punch because three months later, Walgreens started carrying the Hims & Hers personal care products in-store and online.

Targeting Early Adopters with Content

Although it went dark in 2021, Hims/Hers used Medium to own their story, create interest in the early-adopter crowd, and help them navigate the choppy consumer waters during the pandemic. Hims/Hers used Medium to make announcements, and they also hosted Q&As with medical professionals over topics that showed their consumers they understood them and their most personal medical problems.

 

Healthtech Kiira Health Leverages Healthcare PR at Opportune Moments

  • $4 million raised
  • Named one of the most promising startups in 2021 by VCs in Business Insider

Kiira is a healthtech startup that provides an online health clinic to college-aged women with an inclusive and culture-centered approach. The platform provided 24/7 365 access to trusted health experts, including primary care providers, ObGyn, nurse practitioners, and mental health experts. When the pandemic hit, many college-aged women found themselves without access to healthcare. This an especially acute issue because without “adequate resources and guidance, students are at risk for high rates of STDs on campus, unintended pregnancies, adolescent maternal deaths, and other adverse events.” according to CEO and cofounder Crystal Evuleocha, so she teamed up Dr. Candice Fraser, MD FACOG to solve the issue for millions of young women.

Using the Media to Reach Your Target Community

Both co-founders are open about their own experiences with a lack of access to care or questions about how to access care and the dangerous consequences. By leveraging personal stories that speak directly to the organization’s community, the co-founders have shown their audiences that they truly understand them, as they did in Forbes and Essence in 2021.

Moreover, when the founders speak to their community, they stay on message. They share the same information that inspired them to start Kiira Health and they underscore the most pressing issues for young women.

Using Press Releases For Corporate History

Should you issue a press release, or shouldn’t you? One time it’s crystal clear that you should, when there is a big corporate moment that will build your brand credibility with press and/or consumers, as Kiira Health did when it announced its first flagship location in Los Angeles. While press releases aren’t usually the source of media coverage by themselves, it likely didn’t hurt when Crunchbase included them in a story about health and wellness startups. This kind of press release acts a flagpole in the sand for future credibility building for both VC and media.

 

Folx Health Using PR to Elevate Understanding

  • $59 million raised
  • #28 on Fast Company’s list of World’s Most Innovative Companies 2023

Taking Control of their Founding Story

Folx Health is a healthtech platform that provides healthcare services tailored to the LGBTQIA+ community, starting at $59/month. In May 2020, Folx founder A.G. Breitenstein took to Medium to tell how Folx came to be. Although this Medium post is their only Medium post, it shows a particular media savvy. In December that year Folx’s $4.4 million funding led to coverage on Mashable, Built in Boston, and Crunchbase. The Medium post is so important because it is an early flag in the sand about the founding story of the then little-known startup Folx, which is important when a big media announcement hits and suddenly there is a lot of press and a lot of opportunities for the founding story to be misunderstood or misrepresented.

PR to Take a Stand

On the heels of its $30 million raise in October 2022, Folx appears to take control of its narrative again. This time, it does so as a fierce source of information about healthcare’s inadequacy for the queer community. Time after time, Folx uses an intelligent combination of data and storytelling to articulate Folx’s purpose and need to a broader audience. And this time, Folx CEO is the spokesperson for thier entire community: The American healthcare system, “at best, wasn’t built for us. And actually, more often than not, it’s openly discriminatory,” says Liana Douillet-Guzmán, of the LGBTQ community. Folx isn’t simply leveraging purpose-driven PR, they are CULTURALLY purpose-driven, making their PR story all the more attractive.

 

 

All of these hypergrowth healthtech brands provide examples of PR in healthcare brands, but these examples can also be useful for all startups in any phase of growth. Taking ownership of PR in the earliest stages can pay remarkable dividends in the early development and later hypergrowth stages. During times of volatility, PR can be the shining beacon into the future and light the path for future growth, even with past coverage.