A Rebrand That Keeps Residents From Fleeing To The City for Health Care

When your health system lives in the shadow of academic medical centers and urban-based powerhouse healthcare brands, its takes real work to compete. Cape Cod Healthcare (CCHC) has undergone a transition to do just that, according to Patrick Kane, Senior Vice President of CCHC’s Marketing, Communications, and Business Development.

A series of organizational changes have been paired with the system’s major rebranding effort, which includes a new website designed to better serve area residents.

How this website redesign project was leveraged to communicate CCHC’s changing organization and new brand story was the focus of a joint presentation by Kane and Ben Dillon, Chief Strategy Officer of Geonetric at the Healthcare and Physician Strategies Summit. Geonetric is a website development company and digital agency that worked with CCHC on this initiative. (Dillon is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for our partner publication, eHealthcare Strategy & Trends.)

The Challenges Facing CCHC

CCHC is located on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a resort area that from June through August draws tourists from all over the country. It’s also home to year-round residents, many who often travel to Boston every time they need to see a doctor or undergo preventative or diagnostic tests or treatments simply because they don’t understand what’s available in their own backyard.

The numbers also told this story of outmigration. In 2008, so many patients were making the hour-plus trek to the big city hospitals for care that CCHC was operating at a loss and facing dwindling market share.

Difference is in the Details

“By partnering with our physicians, we were able to collaborate on improving our quality of care,” Kane explains. He points out that to make this possible, CCHC took a variety of cost-cutting measures to make the organization more profitable. For instance, they cut staff positions, renegotiated contracts, and worked more closely with physicians to provide the highest quality services in the most efficient way. This accompanied a transformation from a hospital-centric organization to one where more services can be delivered in an outpatient setting. In fact, CCHC opened community outpatient centers to make it easier for patients to access care locally.

Taking a Unique Approach

The outpatient model is unique, according to Kane, because the centers are run by emergency department-trained physicians and staff and when patients access care in this setting, they are entered into the larger network so they can seamlessly move to other levels of care right within the system.

The construction of the outpatient centers was funded through generous donations from local residents. Donations also helped to fund brand-new emergency departments, upgraded operating rooms, and two new women’s centers to meet the extensive needs that exist in the summer when the snowbirds return and tourists arrive.

All of these steps have made a big difference in repositioning CCHC as a leading provider of top quality health care on the Cape, Kane says.

Additionally, CCHC’s newly redesigned website, the entry point into the system, is a key part of the puzzle.

To learn 3 key components of CCHC’s approach to its online “front door,” read the full article now: Health System’s Rebrand Connects with Area Residents—A Battle Plan for Combatting Outmigration.

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President