Consumer-driven healthcare is transforming more than care delivery; it’s reshaping hospital budgets, too. The US healthcare industry already buys more than $10 billion in advertising per year — and its marketing spend is forecast to grow through 2021 by an annual average of 1.8%.

Although other American industries like retail and automobiles decreased their marketing spends last year, healthcare did not,” advertising consulting firm BIA/Kelsey’s senior VP and chief economist Mark Fratrik told FierceHealthcare‘s Paige Minemyer.

A decade or more ago, Fratrik said, “You went to the hospital your doctor told you to go to. There’s a little bit more choice available with the internet.”

And because consumers are increasingly dependent on the Internet, digital marketing is becoming more important to US providers who want to build their brands. BIA/Kelsey predicts health systems’ marketing spends will accordingly shift decisively toward mobile-first/digital-first models by 2021.

Read more here, in FierceHealthcare.