Rx for Your Health Care Organization’s Internal Newsletter? Make It Interactive.

What’s the best way to nurse an ailing employee newsletter back to health? For Miami Children’s Health System (MCHS), the solution to overhaul an existing internal publication in dire need of an update was to use an updated software solution that creates an interactive digital experience for staff members.

Francis Forte, Employee Communications Specialist at Miami Children’s Health System

As the only designated health system exclusively focused on children in the Miami area, MCHS has more than 3,500 employees spread out among multiple locations who all share one common goal: to care for the health of the youngest members of the surrounding communities.

The employees span four generations, and more than 80 percent of them are minorities. Such diversity means MCHS has to find effective methods of communication that take into account key differences to ensure everyone feels included, explains Francis Forte, Employee Communications Specialist at MCHS.

Until recently, she says, the organization produced a traditional email employee newsletter that was a vehicle used by the corporate office to share information with various departments and staff. Yet the publication was stale and dated, so its impact was diluted. This fact prompted Forte to explore a more effective approach to better serve the employees and meet their unique needs.

“We were already using a newsletter tool that helped us create a well-organized email, but it was lacking in aesthetics as well as in giving our audience the ability to socialize with us,” Forte explains. Since a large number of employees are millennials or generation Xers, having a means for social media engagement was crucial. The newsletter also needed to be able to be read on mobile devices and tablets, since most of the clinical staff is always on the go. “We also needed a system that would give us the ability to clearly measure our ROI,” she adds.

The new platform addressed all of these challenges, making it easy for MCHS’ talent management/human resources department to create interactive weekly digital newsletters that offer readers the ability to like, comment, and share the content from any type of device.

Might such a solution work for your organization, too? Read the full article (which includes 6 tips for newsletter success) to learn more: How One Children’s Hospital Doctored Its Employee Newsletter Back to Health.

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President