Patrick SullivanTurn your clinical expertise into content patients actually read.
Content strategy, editorial operations, and AI workflows for health systems and the agencies that serve them.
It’s usually a systems problem, not a writing problem.
Most healthcare organizations have the expertise. What they’re missing is the process that turns it into something a patient will read and a clinician will sign off on.
- Clinical expertise goes in. Generic marketing copy comes out.
- Patient education that’s accurate, compliant, and unreadable.
- AI bolted onto the workflow with no editorial safeguards because the vendor said it was fine.
- A team that needs senior judgment but can’t justify another full-time hire.
What healthcare teams hire me for
Content strategy
Audits, editorial roadmaps, and a plan for what to publish and why, built around the patient instead of the content calendar.
Content operations
Workflow, governance, and SME review that doesn’t stall. The standards your team will actually use.
AI-assisted content systems
AI in the workflow without handing it the keys: Implementation, training, guardrails, and documentation that compliance can live with.
Copywriting & editing
Patient education, service lines, expert Q&As: The fulfillment arm when the plan needs shipping. Direct or through your agency.
My Work
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Embedded content strategy for a health system digital rebuild
Through Phase2 Technology, embedded on a major Pennsylvania-based integrated health system's site rebuild: writer-ready clinical content briefs, service-line content maps, SEO-informed recommendations, and a clinical taxonomy — 33 service lines, content types, and audience dimensions — built for the CMS and site search.
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Content governance standards for a health system content team
Authored the governance framework for the same rebuild: intake with a why-we-ask rationale, a yes/no triage gate, channel-fit criteria, review and maintenance models, ownership and escalation paths, and the operating metrics to run it by — packaged for leadership buy-in and strategist onboarding.
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Education strategy for an academic health sciences college
Current-state assessment and findings & recommendations for a health system's college of health sciences: an 870-URL content inventory, competitive analysis, SEO audit support, and a consolidate–structure–storytelling roadmap — including one service line cut from 27 pages to 7.
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Diabetes nutrition content strategy
For a national health-education publisher: research and gap analysis across 130,000+ monthly searches, a prioritized content calendar, and recommendations that separate must-have from nice-to-have — with GLP-1 coverage flagged as the urgent unmet need.
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YSNT — Yesterday's Science News…Today!
My own AI-in-medicine publication: five to seven illustrated story cards, published near-daily by one person. AI-assisted curation, summarization, and illustration through a four-stage pipeline I built and operate — with editorial judgment gating every step.
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Agent-assisted content operations
The workshop behind the client work: a multi-agent editorial environment for research, drafting, design, and QA, run under the same rules I recommend to clients — documented workflows, human review gates, and no silent automation.
What people say about the work
“Patrick was an invaluable partner on our website rebuild project. His expertise in content strategy, SEO, content governance, taxonomy and writing helped keep a complex, fast-moving project on track. I’m grateful for his support and would highly recommend him.”
From intake to handoff
- Step 1
Intake
You tell me what’s broken, blocked, or underperforming.
- Step 2
Honest read
I look at scope, audience, and what’s in the way. If I’m not the right fit, I’ll say so.
- Step 3
Working plan
Deliverables, process, and success criteria. In writing.
- Step 4
Execution
I build the strategy, the system, or the content...or all three.
- Step 5
Handoff
You keep the content and the system. The goal isn’t to make you depend on me.
Where I do my best work
A good fit
- Health systems and hospitals
- Healthcare agencies
- Research institutions
- Medical associations & nonprofits
- Patient education teams
- Teams that need strategy plus execution
Probably not a fit
- Miracle-cure wellness brands
- High-volume SEO commodity content
- Unreviewed medical claims
- “Just rewrite this with AI” projects
- Rush jobs with no source material
Between the experts and the audience
Healthcare has plenty of writers and plenty of experts. The shortage is people who can sit between them and interview the clinician, respect the evidence, survive the review process, and ship something a patient will actually read. I’ve done that work since 2015. Now I build the systems that let whole teams do it.
Tell me what’s broken.
It starts with a five-minute intake. I reply to every request within two business days with an honest read of what’s wrong, what it would take to fix, and whether I’m the right person, even if the answer is “you don’t need me.”