Health System’s Rebrand Connects with Area Residents—A Battle Plan for Combatting Outmigration
// By Lisa D. Ellis //
When your health system lives in the shadow of academic medical centers and urban-based powerhouse health care 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 at the Healthcare and Physician Strategies Summit in Las Vegas recently that featured Kane and Ben Dillon, Chief Strategy Officer of Geonetric, a website development company and digital agency that worked with CCHC on this initiative.
The Challenges Facing CCHC
CCHC is 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, the nearest major city, every time they need to see a doctor or undergo preventive 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.
Then CCHC took some strategic steps—including forming two new groups focused on strengthening relationships between physicians and CCHC’s hospitals, and creating new partnerships with Boston health care providers. In this article, we’ll explore the steps they took, their results—including getting financials back into the black—and lessons learned along the way.