Radisson Hotel Group shapes the future of healthcare meeting design

New industry report by Radisson Hotel Group highlights the shift from event execution to strategic healthcare meeting design, underpinned by methodology, intelligent orchestration, and measurable outcomes.

Radisson Hotel Group (RHG) is helping drive a new era in healthcare meeting planning, contributing to the industry’s evolution from operational event delivery to a structured, strategic discipline focused on improving scientific exchange, decision-making, and healthcare outcomes.

The findings emerge from the Radisson Hotel Group Knowledge Exchange: Healthcare Planning, Design and Strategy Summit held in Florence, Italy, where 75 experts from across the pharmaceutical, healthcare agency, and venue production sectors came together to explore the future of healthcare meeting design. Built to drive tangible outcomes, the two-day summit centered on collaborative working sessions and practical workshops that translated industry insights into actionable frameworks, rather than a traditional conference format.

The resulting report identifies a clear industry shift: healthcare meetings are increasingly being recognized not as standalone events, but as strategic communication systems that require structured design, measurable methodologies, and continuous improvement.

“Healthcare meetings are no longer simply logistical exercises—they are strategic communication platforms that can drive measurable educational, scientific, and organizational outcomes,” said Muriel Poulenc, Senior Director, Sales Strategy at Radisson Hotel Group. “Across the industry, we are seeing growing recognition that better outcomes require more than flawless execution. They require structured design, integrated workflows, and a more deliberate approach to how meetings are planned, delivered, and measured. The organizations embracing this shift will be best positioned to create meaningful impact.”

Healthcare meeting design is becoming a discipline

A central theme emerging from the Florence summit is the growing professionalization of healthcare meeting planning. As regulatory requirements, stakeholder expectations, and organizational complexity continue to increase, the industry is moving toward shared methodologies, frameworks, and measurement systems that support more consistent and effective outcomes.

Building on discussions first initiated at the 2025 Knowledge Exchange, participants worked to translate industry insight into practical, repeatable tools designed to improve meeting effectiveness, compliance, and stakeholder engagement. The report argues that healthcare meetings should no longer be viewed as isolated events, but as intentionally designed systems that support learning, collaboration, and decision-making across the healthcare ecosystem.

The healthcare meeting planner is becoming a decision architect

As healthcare meetings become more complex, the role of the planner is evolving beyond coordination and logistics. The report highlights the emergence of meeting planners as strategic decision architects, responsible for aligning stakeholders, structuring workflows, and helping organizations make better decisions throughout the planning lifecycle.

Workshop discussions revealed that many organizational challenges, including delays, inefficiencies, and rework, are often the result of fragmented decision-making rather than execution shortcomings. Participants concluded that better meetings depend on better decision structures, greater alignment, and earlier strategic involvement from planners.

AI won't fix healthcare meetings. Better systems will

While artificial intelligence (AI) continues to dominate industry conversations, the Florence summit challenged the assumption that technology alone will solve healthcare meeting challenges. According to discussions and data presented during the summit, while AI adoption across the industry is high, relatively few organizations are achieving its full value. Participants agreed that the real challenge is not technology adoption, but the integration of AI into coherent workflows, governance models, and decision-making systems.

The report identifies fragmented processes, disconnected workflows, and inconsistent planning structures as some of the industry's most significant barriers to progress. In many organizations, as much as 40–60% of planning activity remains focused on non-value-creating work.

To address these challenges, RHG advocates for the adoption of structured methodologies, including Lean Six Sigma, Agile, and Sprint thinking, to redesign healthcare meeting planning around flow, efficiency, and measurable outcomes.

Build. Measure. Learn.

One of the report's key contributions is the introduction and exploration of the Meeting Flow Efficiency Ratio (MFER), a framework designed to measure the balance between value-creating activity and reactive planning effort. The model demonstrates how organizations can increase productive planning time by improving workflow design, reducing friction, and creating greater alignment across teams and stakeholders.

The report also reinforces the need to move beyond one-off event thinking toward a continuous engagement model. This evolution is particularly important given the report's finding that 66% of healthcare professionals change their clinical practice or prescribing behavior following participation in industry-sponsored symposia, highlighting the significant influence healthcare meetings can have on professional decision-making and patient outcomes.

An industry ready to evolve

A panel featuring senior leaders from Inizio Engage XD, MCI, Emota, and Open Audience reinforced the report's conclusions.

Drawing on longitudinal industry data spanning 2018 to 2026, the panel identified a common challenge: not structural failure, but structural inertia. While participation remains strong and investment continues, many traditional meeting formats have failed to evolve alongside changing expectations and technological capabilities.

The report concludes that the future of healthcare meetings will belong to organizations that combine methodology, intelligent orchestration, and strategic design to create more impactful, measurable, and scalable engagement.

By combining sector expertise, collaborative industry engagement and methodology-driven approaches, Radisson Hotel Group continues to support the advancement of healthcare meeting design and contribute to the ongoing development of the discipline globally.

Read the full report here.