// By Wendy Stark Healy // It’s essential to understand the emotional aspects of a patient’s interaction with a contact center, as people ultimately make decisions based on their feelings. Does your contact center delight patients and uphold the promise your health care organization makes to them? Or is it a pain point with long Read More
View from the C-Suite // By Jane Weber Brubaker // Under Skip Hidlay’s leadership, UChicago Medicine launched a new brand and a new website that helps the organization stand out in a crowded market. When you have a great story to tell, you need great storytellers. Skip Hidlay came on board as senior vice president, Read More
How to make the shift from transactions to relationships // By Jared Johnson // Health care is really good at creating transactions, but not so good at creating relationships. Today’s consumers are frustrated at health care brand experiences that fail to meet their expectations. Visionary health care organizations are listening more and more to the Read More
// By Jordan Pisarcik // Most providers do not have a digital access strategy in place that accounts for health plan initiatives, but greater payer-provider financial alignment will accelerate the need for a coherent strategy. Value-based care models are on the rise, and health care providers and payers are increasingly aligning to control costs while Read More
// By Marcia Simon, APR // Quality and star ratings matter, according to Healthgrades: Patients treated at hospitals receiving a 5-star rating have a 49 percent lower risk of dying, and a 59 percent lower risk of experiencing one or more complications during a hospital stay than if they were treated at hospitals receiving a Read More
“As health marketing strategists, we find ourselves on a frantic pace to reinvent,” says Linda MacCracken, a senior principal at Accenture and SHCM board member. “The new mantra for 2020 is to find, reach, and engage a higher purpose — that of unleashing trapped value. “Trapped value is the common challenge where digital and related Read More
“If you didn’t know the whole story, you’d think last October 20 was a less-than-glorious Sunday in Seattle,” writes SHCM contributor Peter Hochstein. “It was a football day, of course, and the Seattle Seahawks lost to the Baltimore Ravens 30-16. But for two local hospitals, Virginia Mason Health System, with about 600 licensed beds, and Read More
“Not that many years ago, you would commonly find ‘senior services’ programs in almost every hospital across the country,” says Daniel Fell, a senior strategist at Optum. “But somewhere along the way, despite the demographic trends confronting the health care industry that clearly point to a seismic shift among the health care population — mainly Read More
Hospital marketers have to be active on social media and online review sites, right? We know the answer is ‘yes,’ but who is it for and how do you do it well? A recent national consumer survey conducted by Wax Custom Communications showed surprising results about who follows social media channels and to what extent Read More
If you’re a big, distributed health network with multiple locations and thousands of employees, how do you make sure your employees keep you top of mind when they’re out in the community? “We’re a large 10-hospital network — soon to be 12 — with over 15,500 employees,” says Mary Beth Golab, director of internal communications Read More
// By Peter Hochstein // Properly done, the participation of sports teams can create impressive visibility and emotional involvement for a cancer awareness promotion. Here’s what it produced for the State of Washington’s Virginia Mason Health System and CHI Franciscan. If you didn’t know the whole story, you’d think last October 20 was a less-than-glorious Read More
// By Daniel Fell // How should hospitals and health care delivery systems think about serving the growing “senior” population? How can health systems better leverage data and technology to meet the needs of consumers and caregivers who will be using health care services at the highest rate over the next several decades? Not that Read More
// By Marlene Kurban // Hospital marketers have to be active on social media and online review sites, right? We know the answer is ‘yes,’ but who is it for and how do you do it well? A recent national consumer survey conducted by Wax Custom Communications showed surprising results about who follows social media Read More
// By Linda MacCracken // As health marketing strategists, we find ourselves on a frantic pace to reinvent. The new mantra for 2020 is to find, reach, and engage a higher purpose — that of unleashing trapped value. Trapped value is the common challenge where digital and related technologies are creating value faster than companies Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // If you’re a big, distributed health network with multiple locations and thousands of employees, how do you make sure your employees keep you top of mind when they’re out in the community? One way is to capitalize on what they already love. “We’re a large 10-hospital network — soon Read More
As the only children’s hospital in the state of Arkansas, with greater than 90 percent awareness, Arkansas Children’s had historically not prioritized marketing, says Carla Bryant, executive vice president of Corrigan Consulting. “While they had a marketing department, it was more focused on internal communications than strategic marketing,” Bryant says. New leadership brought a new Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // What should a high-performing marketing function in a health system look like? And how do you leverage marketing to support growth? As the only children’s hospital in the state of Arkansas, with greater than 90 percent awareness, Arkansas Children’s had historically not prioritized marketing, says Carla Bryant, executive vice Read More
“You can do terrible things to a puppet for popular amusement that aren’t funny when they happen to real people,” says veteran copywriter and SHCM contributor Peter Hochstein. “You can make him horribly ill. You can afflict him with a swarm of bees. You can break off his leg, or worse. Almost no matter what Read More
“Population health is a hot topic in our industry,” says Susan Dubuque of ndp. “But let’s be honest. As health care marketing professionals, we may have a difficult time getting our heads around this complex, multifaceted concept. There is lack of clarity about even the most basic issues like: What is population health? Who is Read More
Hospital and physician-owned Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have seen double-digit growth since 2015. Axios, which tracks membership data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), reports that the largest organization in this category, Kaiser Permanente, grew 23 percent from 2015 to 2018, to almost 1.6 million members. The other 40 or so hospital- and Read More
// By Wendy Stark Healy // Medicare Advantage Plans have become a popular choice among Medicare recipients, and health systems are staking their claim to the market. Some health systems have had insurance arms for years, and others are just launching their plans. Done correctly, hospital-sponsored Medicare Advantage plans offer an attractive opportunity for health Read More
// By Scott Opitz // What’s the best way to improve a process? In complex organizations like health care systems with countless interdependent processes, tracing the root of a problem back to its source and fixing it may not be a straightforward proposition. What if there was an always-on technology solution running in the background Read More
Marketers envision playing a leading role in population health activities. // By Susan Dubuque // Population health is a hot topic in our industry. But let’s be honest. As health care marketing professionals, we may have a difficult time getting our heads around this complex, multifaceted concept. There is lack of clarity about even the Read More
Approximately 0.6 percent (about 1.4 million) of American adults identify as transgender, according to a report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. Like all people, transgender individuals — people who have a gender identity or expression that differs from their assigned sex at birth — need access to health care. Many Read More
// By Althea Fung // Care of transgender patients is complex, cutting across multiple medical specialties and requiring an integrated, coordinated approach — including care at home. Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery (CTMS) offers gender-affirming care to trans men and women. Approximately 0.6 percent (about 1.4 million) of American adults identify as Read More