WhyReservoir
Reservoir Health helps organizations shape the policy, narrative, and market environments to enable health care innovation to reach patients.
We integrate policy, market enablement, and communications to shape how health care innovations are understood, valued, accessed, and adopted. We work with organizations developing new therapies, devices, diagnostics, digital health solutions, and models of care.
Bryan Dumont is a leader in the field of reputation management and corporate branding. Bryan has helped the world’s leading companies apply research and measurement tools to develop and execute multi-stakeholder campaigns, initiatives, and programs. He has pioneered methodologies to enhance the insights & analytics used by corporate affairs executives. He is a frequent speaker on the latest trends in corporate communications, strategic analytics, and how reputation and corporate brands provide measurable impact on tangible business outcomes
Bryan previously directed enterprise-wide reputation strategy and insights for Exelon Corporation, the largest publicly traded utility and power generator. Bryan came to Exelon in a newly-created research and analytics function to inform enterprise-wide decisions with insights, marketplace intelligence, and data-driven evidence. In this position, he developed one of the most robust insights & analytics functions of any Fortune 100 company. Before joining Exelon in 2017, he was a partner at the Brunswick Group in its London office where he helped clients convert research insights and strategy into corporate campaigns and programs.
He led the corporate campaigns to offer in London, serving as a “bridge” across multiple disciplines and specialisms across the firm to develop methodologies and approaches on how to create multi-stakeholder campaigns for companies.
Before moving to London, Bryan spent 16 years with APCO Worldwide where he was President for APCO Insight, based in Washington, DC, and later Brussels. Bryan was the driving force in building the firm’s research division into a global opinion research and strategy consultancy. He is the main architect of APCO Insight’s industry-leading reputation and brand research methodologies. He previously served as a Congressional staff person, management consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and research director at the Roper Center.
Clare is an Executive Vice President at Reservoir Communications Group with significant experience leading corporate communications, rapid response and crisis media efforts, brand management, and advocacy campaigns.
Prior to joining Reservoir, she led external communications for Morgan Health, a business unit within JPMorgan Chase focused on improving the quality, equity, and affordability of employer-sponsored health care. In this role, Clare managed the organization’s executive thought leadership, content development, media engagement, and event management for the Morgan Health team as well as support for its portfolio companies.
She also served as the lead spokesperson and press secretary for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the national trade association representing the health insurance industry. Clare oversaw the industry’s communications strategy and media engagement on key policy issues, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid Managed Care, and federal and state legislative priorities.
Before joining AHIP, Clare was an associate at APCO Worldwide, a global public affairs and strategic communications firm, where she managed campaigns spanning global and national healthcare issues, including the launch of a national advocacy effort around expanded access to childhood vaccines and health plans’ wellness and prevention efforts.
Clare has a B.A. in Journalism from Indiana University and completed her M.B.A. at the University of Maryland.
Elisabeth M. Oehrlein, Ph.D., MS, is a mixed methods researcher who leads qualitative and quantitative primary data collection studies to produce actionable patient and caregiver insights across the medical product lifecycle. Her expertise includes patient-centered evidence generation, clinical outcome assessment (COA) strategy and development, and patient-centered evidence planning. She partners with life sciences companies and patient organizations to identify patient-centered evidence needs, prioritize research investments, and develop evidence that reflects patients’ lived experience, unmet needs, burden of disease, and desired outcomes to inform research, development, regulatory, access, and post-launch decision-making.
Dr. Oehrlein founded AppliedPX, a patient-centered research and strategy consulting firm that was acquired by Reservoir in 2026. She currently serves as Principal Scientist at AppliedPX and Executive Vice President and Head of Patient Engagement at Reservoir. Prior to founding AppliedPX, she served on the National Health Council senior leadership team, where she directed research and educational initiatives focused on patient engagement, value assessment, and real-world evidence. She has spoken widely on patient-centered research, including invited presentations at the National Academy of Sciences and briefings to the Rare Disease Congressional Caucus. She has published extensively in medical, economic, and health policy journals and serves as an Associate Editor of Value in Health.
Elisabeth holds a BA from Franklin & Marshall College, an MS in Epidemiology from the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Epidemiology and Human Genetics, and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Health Services Research from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.
Setareh Samii is an innovative public affairs leader with nearly 15 years of experience at the intersection of healthcare business and policy. She leverages her creativity and deep knowledge of the healthcare ecosystem to lead environment shaping and policy communications efforts that enable patient access and drive positive business outcomes for clients.
Before joining Reservoir, Setareh spent several years on the Policy & Research team at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), where she provided a broad range of policy expertise on key federal advocacy priorities for the biopharmaceutical industry, including intellectual property, industry economics, venture capital, and STEM education. She has also held positions at APCO Worldwide and the J. Craig Venter Institute.
Setareh holds a J.D. from the George Washington University, where she also completed a B.A. in International Affairs with a focus on Global Public Health.
Robert is the Founder and President of Reservoir Communications Group. Immediately prior to founding Reservoir Robert was the Chief Advocacy and Alliance Development Officer for WellPoint, Inc. (now Elevance Health), one of the nation’s leading health benefits companies. Prior to joining WellPoint, Robert was President, Americas for APCO Worldwide, a global public affairs and strategic communications firm. During Robert’s two decades of experience in communications and advocacy he has become known for his work helping clients rethink previously intractable problems, taking innovative approaches to advancing policy goals, and helping organizations build strong and enduring brands that can help advance their business and policy objectives.
Courtney Tyne has more than 15 years of experience in the field of health policy and public affairs, focused on market readiness, cost of care issues, and health care access communications. She has experience developing and leading programs focused on identifying strategies that support high-value, patient-centric access to care strategies, and she works to translate that knowledge into policy-oriented activations and communications for a variety of audiences. Courtney has planned and executed a variety of value, access and policy-related projects, from corporate narratives to product-specific messaging, to stakeholder awareness and education, to executive thought leadership and white papers and issues briefs, all to elucidate solutions-oriented access strategies.
Courtney came to Reservoir from Real Chemistry, where she led the Pricing and Public Affairs team in DC. She previously worked with the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), managing the development of its value of cancer care initiative.
She earned her M.P.H. with a specialization in health care policy from the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health and has co-authored publications with experts in the field of oncology and policy, including a seminal publication on assessing value in oncology. As part of her post-graduate work in public health policy, Courtney served as a graduate intern for the House of Representatives Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health researching issues related to healthcare provision, insurance, and federal policy.
Eva possesses deep knowledge of the healthcare industry, having advised biopharmaceutical and digital health companies, high-growth start-ups, non-profits, integrated health systems, university research programs, grassroots advocacy campaigns and government agencies on communications and advocacy efforts. Before joining Reservoir, Eva was a vice president at a strategic communications and public affairs firm where she developed programs to advance corporate goals, execute thought leadership strategies, and establish healthcare technology companies for growth with biopharma, enterprise, providers and payers. In addition to working as a government contractor for the National Institutes of Health and at a global public relations firm, she previously led communications strategy for a District of Columbia health system that combined a Medicaid health plan, pediatric specialty hospital, home health agency and parent foundation to support people with disabilities.
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Building a Winning Coalition in a Fractured Political Environment
As the midterms approach, communicators must increasingly look beyond broad labels like “Republican,” “Democratic” or “swing” to the values and belief systems that shape how audiences think about health care.
Using PRISM, Reservoir’s audience intelligence platform, we mapped all 435 congressional districts across 16 behavioral and ideological audience segments.
Audiences in districts with similar voting patterns can have very different views on health care – requiring different engagement strategies. For example:
How a district votes doesn’t paint the full picture. Effective audience engagement starts with understanding the values and belief systems that drive the audiences within a district.
PRISM turns district-level audience intelligence into actionable strategy and direct activation. These insights can help organizations:
Click here to explore the PRISM district map, including the audience segments shaping health care opinions in these congressional districts.
Is Your Health Care Advocacy Toolkit Ready for Midterms?
Election years don’t just change who’s in office. They reshape the environment in which health care advocacy organizations pursue their missions. The 2026 midterm elections will influence congressional leadership and committee priorities, state policy agendas, and the broader health care landscape. Organizations that prepare now will be better positioned to protect patient access, advance key policy priorities, and build relationships with policymakers before and after Election Day.
Effective advocacy, particularly when advancing a policy agenda, is about becoming a trusted resource when policymakers need timely, credible information to make informed decisions. That’s why the strongest advocacy programs don’t simply react to political change; they anticipate it by investing early in the relationships, resources, and infrastructure needed to remain effective regardless of how the political landscape evolves.
Now is the time to pressure test your internal and external advocacy strategy by:
Election Day is an important milestone, but it isn’t the finish line. In many ways, the most meaningful work begins once the ballots have been counted, and the governing landscape begins to take shape.
Changes in leadership, committee assignments, agency priorities, and legislative calendars can quickly reshape the policy environment. Taking the time now to prepare for multiple scenarios will better position your organization to maintain momentum, adapt to change, and continue advancing their mission regardless of the political landscape.
That preparation starts with asking a few critical questions. Does your organization have the resources needed to educate new audiences about your issue? Are your messaging, materials, and policy priorities flexible enough to remain relevant as priorities shift? Have you identified where your strongest relationships exist — and where you’ll need to build new ones?
The transition period post-election moves quickly, leaving little time to develop new strategies from scratch. Think of the time between November and January as an opportunity to reaffirm coalition alignment, ensuring partners remain unified around shared priorities, consistent messaging, and a coordinated strategy as the policy landscape evolves. Organizations that pressure-test their advocacy plans before Election Day won’t spend the transition reacting — they’ll spend it leading.
As the midterms approach, take the opportunity to refresh your advocacy resources — from fact sheets to issue briefs — with the latest data and policy developments. Just as importantly, distill that information into concise, decision-ready resources that help policymakers quickly understand both the challenge and the solution.
Importantly, consider how your materials are framed for your audience(s). The most compelling and impactful advocacy campaigns align policy solutions and patients together. No matter the complexity of the issue, authentic stories that reflect patients’ lived experiences are one of the most important ways to turn abstract policy debates into conversations that drive awareness, understanding, and action.
As you evaluate your advocacy infrastructure and materials, determine whether your messaging strikes the right balance between evidence and experience. Do your materials pair credible data with compelling patient stories? Are patient voices woven throughout your communications? Every advocate should be able to explain not only the policy challenge, but the real-world consequences of getting it right — or wrong — for the patients and communities elected officials represent. Relatedly, your outreach to advocates should be intentional and clear. Strong two-way communication is essential at every step of your advocacy efforts.
Building and empowering your advocates is key ahead of and during transitions, and they ultimately represent your organization in more places than ever before. Whether they’re meeting with policymakers, participating in coalition meetings, speaking at conferences, engaging with reporters, or mobilizing grassroots supporters, every interaction reinforces — or weakens — your organization’s credibility. Organizations that invest in shared messaging and consistent training create advocates who speak with one voice, regardless of the audience.
The post-election environment will also usher in new lawmakers and staff who may have little familiarity with your issue. That makes this the ideal time to prepare your advocates — not only by sharpening their storytelling skills, but by ensuring they can confidently educate new audiences, answer difficult questions, and establish themselves as trusted resources from the very first meeting. Whether you’re onboarding first-time grassroots advocates or preparing seasoned champions for a new Congress, investing in advocacy training today will strengthen every engagement tomorrow.
Election years reshape the environment in which advocacy organizations operate. The organizations that succeed won’t be those that predicted every outcome — they’ll be the ones that invested in the people, partnerships, and infrastructure needed to thrive in any environment. The question isn’t whether change is coming. It’s whether your advocacy program is ready to lead through it.
Clarity in Complexity: Effective Communications Across the Product Lifecycle
Innovation in the life sciences is constantly evolving. But every major stakeholder — patients, caregivers, advocates, investors, clinicians, policymakers, payers — continues to ask some version of the same questions:
What does this innovation mean, why does it matter, and what should we do with it?
Answering those questions is a corporate imperative, particularly in today’s health care environment defined by scrutiny, fragmentation, and competition. A company’s ability to effectively define and position its innovation can ultimately help shape whether that innovation is trusted, valued, accessible, and adopted.
Every company operates within a complex stakeholder ecosystem that includes distinct audiences with different needs:
Against these demands, the strongest communications approach is translatable across audiences, grounded in science, and calibrated for the market dynamics that shape patient access.
Life sciences companies generate enormous amounts of information: preclinical and clinical data, lived experience data, patient preferences, clinician behaviors, health economics analyses, real-world evidence, market research, commercial adoption, and more.
The communications challenge is to turn this information into meaning so that it can be understood, contextualized, and acted upon. The strongest communications functions often position themselves as a “translator” across the enterprise — aligning every function around a clear, resonant story of unmet need, clinical benefit and value to patients, families, and society.
Crafting an effective, cohesive story across this complexity is the core challenge for an enterprise. And this is where communications can be the difference between innovation that is promising and innovation that is trusted, valued, and accessible to the people it is designed to serve.
Every stage of the product life cycle comes with different communications challenges. Communications must be an enterprise integrator connecting diverse perspectives a coherent narrative that proactively address these challenges:
Product lifecycle stages present new questions, new audiences, and new decisions. Effective communications connect the evidence, the narrative, and the stakeholder experience — from early development through commercialization and beyond. Organizations that approach communications as an integrated, end-to-end capability are better positioned to translate complexity into clarity and create value for patients, healthcare systems, and the enterprise.
