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This year is going to be filled with uncertainty for the health care industry—and, as a result, for health care communications. For starters, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will continue to reshape our health care system, and the Supreme Court will also decide whether an individual health care mandate is constitutional.

But even with so many political, economic and regulatory questions hanging in the air, here are four trends that will affect health care communications in 2012.

Do no harm. It’s a cardinal rule for doctors – and it should be the same for advertisers because a poorly executed ad can do as much damage as a surgeon with a shaky hand.

Recently, when flipping through a defense magazine, I came across one of these misguided ads and was shocked by how badly it served the company that had purchased it.

The one-pager was for comms equipment, and it depicted your typical soldier as an operator. But on his camo cap, there was the word “infidel” written in Arabic-style script, a tweak to Islamic extremists.

With the 2012 election cycle in full swing, congressional approval hovers around 9%. To put this into perspective, at the height of Watergate, President Nixon's favorability never dropped below 23%. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) joked that the 9% who endorse Congress at this point are likely blood relatives or paid staffers.

I’ve been spending a fair bit of time lately thinking about the practice of measurement and evaluation in public relations.

The pharmaceutical industry realizes it must participate in social media. After all, that’s where its customers — patients and health care providers — can be found. In fact, more than 65 percent of physicians use social media for professional purposes, while more than 40 percent of patients use it to find health-related information.

Boeing is swearing up and down that it has not abandoned Kansas. Sure, just a few weeks ago, it ordered the shuttering of its Wichita plant — a move that put 2,160 people out of work and raised hackles across the state.

Tonight’s CNN debate in Charleston, South Carolina, could well be the last stand for Newt Gingrich. Politico’s most recent poll, released this morning, shows the former Speaker of the House bearing down on Governor-bot Romney, closing the gap to about seven points.

It’s been a slow build, but 2012’s crop of GOP candidates have finally begun to stake out their positions on the defense budget. And apart from the decidedly confused Ron Paul — who seems to think that the State Department and Pentagon are the same thing — the group seems to be generally pro-military spending, defying the doom and gloom scenarios that many were expecting.

Well, what a year 2011 was. A new SecDef and Pentagon leadership, sequestration and budget cuts, the debt ceiling debate, bin Laden finally getting his comeuppance, U.S. forces withdrawing from Iraq, acquisition reform and all the merger/acquisition/spin-off activity that seems to have captivated the industry are all enough to make anyone’s head spin. I get tired just thinking about the past 12 months.

Now that the federal government’s CLASS Act has been shelved, the problem of paying for long-term care is back in the public eye. According to a 2011 MetLife report, the cost of a private room in a nursing home averages $87,000-plus a year, while the assisted living facility rate is more than $41,000 a year – and these massive costs are only expected to grow. Worse still, these sums do not include private aids or any of the special equipment a senior or disabled person might need.