Expressions of Rage? Or Inspirational Pep Talks? Whatever You Call Them, Hospital Ads with an Aggressive Stance Could Make Your Market Sit Up and Take Notice

Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // Fighting words and images may be just the thing some hospitals need to break through the miasma of inattention. In an upcoming issue of this publication, a fellow contributor, James A. Gardner, will write about a campaign for the Canadian pediatric hospital, Sick Kids. The campaign Read More

3 Important Takeaways from Monigle’s 2019 Humanizing Brand Experience Report

// By Daniel Fell // The latest release of Monigle’s Humanizing Brand Experience report lays out a wealth of new information and insights into understanding what makes strong health care brands today, as well as challenges that health care leaders face in achieving higher levels of brand engagement and brand loyalty. The report itself is Read More

How Effective Is Your Provider Information Management Platform?

// By Tom White // Marketers charged with leading their health systems into the new era of consumerism understand the hard truth about regional markets: They are a zero-sum game. Every covered life gained is a win over the competition, and the stakes are high: CMS pegs healthcare spending per person at nearly $10,800 annually, Read More

BayCare Health’s Vision: Evidence-Based Design for Care Delivery

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Consumerism is driving all industries to innovate, and health care is no exception. The ideal state is a digitally enabled, frictionless consumer experience. But in a highly complex industry like health care that has traditionally operated with a command-and-control vs. consumer-centric mindset, it’s a massive change. Adding to the Read More

High-Tech Care Delivery Plus High-Touch Human Interaction

Consumerism is driving all industries to innovate, and health care is no exception. The ideal state is a digitally enabled, frictionless consumer experience. But in a highly complex industry like health care that has traditionally operated with a command-and-control vs. consumer-centric mindset, it’s a massive change. Adding to the cultural challenges, the pain points on Read More

Lessons Learned from a Ransomware Attack: A Hospital CEO’s Perspective

View from the C-Suite // By Althea Fung // The evening of January 11, 2018, Steve Long, president and CEO of Hancock Health and Hancock Regional Hospital, got a call he’s not likely to soon forget. “Our administrator on call had received a call from the lab. They said there is something wrong with our Read More

Marketing Hospitals to Nurses

How Marketing Can Support Your Employer Brand // By Kathy Selker // Facing a nursing shortage projected to increase in coming years, hospitals need to know how to hire and retain top talent — and marketing has a key role in this critical objective. Health care needs in the U.S. are growing rapidly. Baby boomers Read More

Survey: Provider Perspectives on Digital Access

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A free download from Kyruus

As health systems increasingly prioritize digital initiatives to transform patient access, engaging providers in the process will be critical to scaling access and promoting provider satisfaction. We surveyed PCPs and specialists to uncover their thoughts on – and appetite for involvement in – digital access initiatives. Based on responses from 200 providers, we have identified strategies for health systems to win provider buy-in on your modern digital initiatives.

Download the report to discover key findings about provider perspectives, including:

• 91% want to be more involved in creating and maintaining their find-a-provider profile
• While 63% think patient ratings and reviews are very or extremely important
• 64% do not offer online scheduling, yet nearly half of this group expressed interest

For additional insights and best practice for partnering with your providers, download the report today.

Download now »

Consumerism: 9 Factors Reshaping the Health Care Landscape

“Health consumerism continues to revolutionize the health care industry,” says Ken Robbins, founder and president of Response Mine Interactive (RMI). “The days when patients blindly followed their doctors’ recommendations — often without a single question asked — are long gone. Today, physicians and health care organizations face a much more engaged and empowered population. Patients are playing Read More

A High-Touch Health Care Marketing Success Story

“In the occupational medicine business, quality service delivery is the differentiator,” says Terri Hanlon-Bremer, vice president of employer solutions at TriHealth in Cincinnati. “If a company is not happy with your service, they will quickly change to another provider.” Health care marketers are always looking for new ways to reach consumers through social media platforms, Read More

How To Stand Out in a Crowded Subspecialty

Pediatric hospitals and other facilities that treat children face a number of marketing challenges that health providers treating adults do not face. The two most significant barriers health care marketers must overcome are that they are marketing to parents, not the actual potential patient, and that parents do not want to think about children being Read More

Health Consumerism — 9 Trends to Watch

// By Ken Robbins // Health consumerism continues to revolutionize the health care industry. The days when patients blindly followed their doctors’ recommendations — often without a single question asked — are long gone. Today, physicians and health care organizations face a much more engaged and empowered population. Patients are playing by a different set Read More

How To Land Top Talent in a Hot Job Market

When Strategic Health Care Marketing caught up with Marc Cenedella, founder and CEO of Ladders, a popular high-end career website, he reiterated what we first heard last spring: “It’s the greatest market in 50 years.” “Job candidates don’t have the time of day,” he says. “They’re very busy. People have three or four conversations going, Read More

Hot Job Market Flips Traditional Hiring on Its Head

// By Wendy Stark Healy // Tysen Kendig, vice president of communications for the University of Connecticut, was recently hiring an assistant vice president for health marketing at UConn Health and noticed a much stronger applicant pool. Unlike past searches, he wasn’t getting a handful of good people mixed with marginally qualified applicants and those Read More

Edward M. Rafalski and Kathy Selker Join Editorial Advisory Board of Strategic Health Care Marketing

The Strategic Health Care Marketing Editorial Advisory Board is made up of leaders in the health care marketing field who are committed to shaping the future of the industry. They offer ongoing feedback on our editorial coverage, write occasional articles, and point us to developments and people SHCM members like you should know about. I am very pleased to announce that Edward M. Rafalski, Ph.D., MPH, FACHE, and Kathy Selker have joined this elite group.

Advertising Campaign Meant to Do Good Also Does Remarkably Well — With a Boost from Judiciously Deployed Radio

What can radio deliver for hospital advertisers that other media can’t? It’s more than just another way to reach your target market. Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // As often as not these days, radio advertising is an afterthought — part of the creative mix that gets done after someone has written Read More

Pediatric Orthopedics Leverages Sports Medicine to Reach Parents

// By Sheryl S. Jackson // Treatment for musculoskeletal conditions in children is a subspecialty within a subspecialty. How do you stand out in a highly competitive field? Los Angeles-based Orthopaedic Institute for Children has achieved success using its Sports Medicine Center and community outreach to extend brand and name recognition. Pediatric hospitals and other Read More

Direct, Personal Approach to Marketing Works for Occupational Medicine Programs

// By Sheryl S. Jackson // “In the occupational medicine business, quality service delivery is the differentiator,” says Terri Hanlon-Bremer, vice president of employer solutions at TriHealth in Cincinnati. “If a company is not happy with your service, they will quickly change to another provider.” TriHealth has found that good old-fashioned face-to-face relationship building is Read More

The Key Components of an Effective Health Care Marketing Plan

If you’ve ever had a physician demand a billboard that wasn’t in your budget — and who hasn’t? — you can attest to the value of a well-constructed marketing plan. It gives you a blueprint to guide your marketing activities throughout the year, and arms you to defend against misguided requests. What are the components Read More

How to Develop a Marketing Plan That Works

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // If you’ve ever had a physician demand a billboard that wasn’t in your budget — and who hasn’t? — you can attest to the value of a well-constructed marketing plan. It gives you a blueprint to guide your marketing activities throughout the year, and arms you to defend against Read More

Online Scheduling Done Right: 10 Considerations For Health System Buyers

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A free download from Kyruus

Are you ready to make online scheduling a reality?

With high demand for digital self-service, health systems have an opportunity to differentiate their patient experience by making access to providers and services easier with online scheduling. But determining the optimal approach and gaining cross-functional buy-in can be tough.

Download this free buyer’s guide to help you get the right online scheduling plan in place from the start.

Discover how to:

• Develop a comprehensive online scheduling strategy to engage today’s consumers
• Drive organizational alignment, including engaging key stakeholders & providers effectively
• Evaluate and select the optimal solution by asking vendors the right questions

Download now »

2019 Healthcare Reputation Report

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An Analysis of Consumer Reviews for More than 3,800 Hospitals — and How Online Reputation Drives Revenue

A free white paper, published by Reputation.com

Today’s healthcare consumers find healthcare providers online, and they rely on information in online reviews and social media to inform their decisions. This means that for health systems and providers, maintaining a stellar online reputation is essential.

Systems and providers that neglect their online reputation will struggle to compete with others that proactively manage their reputation and consistently show up higher in search rankings with more positive reviews.

To create the 2019 Healthcare Reputation Report, Reputation.com’s data science team applied artificial intelligence, machine learning, and sentiment analysis to unstructured text in reviews of 4,800 hospitals that report revenue annually to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). From that sample, they included 3,824 hospitals with 10 or more online reviews on Google or Facebook between January 1, 2016 and August 31, 2018.

Key findings include:

• A strong Reputation Score predicts higher revenue per bed. Specifically, hospitals with a Reputation Score in the top 25% have a revenue per bed that is $1.2 million higher than hospitals with a Reputation Score in the bottom 25%.
• Google is dominating the search landscape in healthcare and is the top vehicle used for the healthcare listings that consumers use to find organizations and providers.
• The top 5 sites (Google, HomePages, Apple, Facebook and Bing) constitute 89% of all sites used to find healthcare listings.
• Tier 2 sites (Healthgrades, WebMD, Yahoo and Vitals) now make up only 10% of the sites visited when patients look for healthcare listings.
• Hospital reviews on Google grew an incredible 86% from 2016 to 2018 (Figure 2), establishing it as the preferred platform for leaving hospital reviews.

In addition to these findings, the report uncovers the Reputation Score for the top 100 health systems in our study. It also explores the three best practices that health systems and providers must focus on to improve their online reputation.

Download now »

Why Effective Management of the Patient Journey Is Essential

“The U.S. health care industry is undergoing tremendous change — some might say disruption,” says Rich Phillips, CEO and co-founder of Customer Evolution. “This is driven by multiple factors, including rising consumer expectations, the significant cost of care noncompliance, and the emergence of nontraditional competitors.” In his new article, Phillips explains why health care marketers Read More

Technology’s Role in Managing Chronic Conditions

“Telemedicine is more than a nascent trend — it’s here to stay,” according to Kathy Selker, president and CEO of Northlich, an independent, full-service marketing and advertising agency. Selker’s new article explores how technology, such as wearables, can help patients with chronic conditions better monitor their health — and how marketers can connect with and Read More

Walking the Talk with Price Transparency

A 2017 price transparency study published in the journal Hospital Pediatrics found 30 out of 45 pediatric hospitals contacted provided price estimates. Only 12 of the 30 that provided estimates had online price calculators. A new price transparency guideline from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which went into effect in January, is Read More