Sandra Mackey is Chief Marketing Officer at Bon Secours Mercy Health, one of the largest Catholic health systems in the US, with operations across Ireland, Peru, South Sudan and the Philippines. In this conversation from HCIC 2025, recorded before the conference opened, she talks through 30 years in healthcare marketing, what a decade outside the industry taught her about consumer engagement, and what she thinks young professionals need to hear right now.

Her sharpest reframe is on language. She doesn’t like “patient-centered” because it positions the patient as a passive recipient. She prefers patient-led, the idea that patients are already making decisions and health systems need to walk alongside them, not direct them. That shift, she argues, is the most significant cultural change she’s seen in three decades.

She also pushes back on the safe road. Her advice to early-career marketers: be bold, bring the big ideas, and don’t treat failure as something to avoid. Her view is that if you’re not failing, you’re not stretching, and if you’re not stretching, you’re not learning anything your organization doesn’t already know.

The conversation closes on the John A. Eudes Award, which Mackey received at HCIC 2025, one of the industry’s most recognized honors in healthcare marketing. She describes what it means to have her name alongside someone she considers a true pioneer, and what she thinks honoring that legacy actually requires: pushing boundaries, asking hard questions, and being unapologetically passionate about the people your organization serves.