Round up of the 2023 Consumer Healthcare Products Australia Conference

The view from the venue. Wow. Thanks Sydney!

Last week was the 2023 Consumer Healthcare Products Australia conference: “A sustainable future in consumer health care”. This was my first CHP conference and I loved it (and the stunning view at the venue).

Here’s a quick summary of some of my favourites from this conference:

Julia Walsh, CEO of Brand Medicine International and author of ‘What we really ask Dr Google’, provided her insights and expertise on ‘Sustaining your communication strategy in a changing digital landscape’. AI will disrupt traditional search, she says, and industry needs to get ready. But SEO still matters, and Julia advocates applying Search Listening Optimisation to help design a content strategy the truly meets the intent of healthcare consumers.

Ward6 Australia’s Amie Gall and Ed Commander gave an excellent case study of how they’ve harnessed complex and detailed healthcare data to make it meaningful, useable and accessible to policy makers. The solution was visually stunning, creating a captivating story. More than that, though, was how the solution addressed the needs, interests and ability of their end-audience, so they can make better policy decisions.

Dr Fei Sim FPS, national president and chair of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia gave a terrifically engaging and powerful talk on ‘The role of pharmacy and self care for a sustainable healthcare sector’. Given the many challenges facing our healthcare system, she highlighted the important role of community pharmacy in healthcare accessibility, saying: ‘If people can’t get care, no care means harmful care’. Pharmacists are needed as key primary healthcare providers and advocates for self-care and patient-centred care.

Ruth Chapman from Vine Digital gave a very timely talk on ‘AI and Large Language Modelling: 1 year of learning', highlighting the meteoric rise of ChatGPT’ (particularly among students😜), the myriad of potential used for AI in healthcare, and how Google Search has changed how it’s dealing with AI generated content over the past year. The takeaway for me was that SEO/search marketing is still valuable and that a good SEO strategy will always put customer/patient interest first.

Finally, Healthy Harold also made a brief appearance at the conference to launch Life Education's new Anti-Vaping module. Besides the nostalgia of seeing Healthy Harold again, what I love about this new module is how the team has co-produced it with kids and teens. Co-production is where you involve your end-users in developing the health resource and has been shown to help improve accessibility and usability. Brilliant.

What sessions were your favourites at the conference this year? Will you be going next year?