by Kris Rusch “When it comes to health,” asserts an article in Harvard Men’s Health Watch, “males are the weaker sex throughout life.” Compared with women, men on average have more chronic illnesses, die at higher rates from diseases, and have a lower life expectancy. Men also take more risks with their health. They use Read More
by Nancy Vessell If the marketing director of the 445-bed Winchester (VA) Medical Center needs to track down the hospital’s busy medical directors, he knows where he can find them between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. each day. It’s a sure bet they will be in the Daily Safety Call. So ingrained is this daily Read More
by Sheryl S. Jackson The United States will be home to 27 proton therapy centers by 2017, almost double the number in operation at the end of 2013, according to U.S. Proton Therapy Outlook 2017, a report produced by RNCOS, a business research and consultancy firm. The growth of the specialized cancer treatment is attributed Read More
by Cheryl L. Serra Imagine bringing health care to patients instead of requiring patients to travel to health care. Ernie Clevenger, co-founder and president of CareHere, LLC, did just that. The result? His company has a health care clinic with a retail component, the CareHere Walk-In Clinic and Wellness Store, located in the Nashville International Read More
by Nancy Vessell Marketing functions within hospital systems have run the spectrum from fully centralized at the corporate level to mostly autonomous at the local level. But as more hospitals fold themselves into systems, marketing is increasingly shifting toward centralization. “A lot of it is being driven by this crazy world of mergers and acquisitions,” Read More
Workplace programs cut chronic disease costs, but savings from lifestyle change efforts elusive According to a new Rand Corporation study, workplace wellness programs can lower costs for employees with chronic diseases, but components of the programs that encourage adoption of healthier lifestyles may not reduce health care costs or lead to lower net savings. Examining Read More
by Peter Hochstein Next time some doubting Thomas clears his throat and asks how you can be sure hospital advertising pays, cite this case concerning Nash Health Care in Rocky Mount, NC. Nash Health Care, anchored by a 403-bed general hospital, is located in a mostly rural area, flanked roughly 80 miles in one direction Read More
by Diane Atwood A man walks out of his doctor’s office with prescriptions to lower his blood pressure and cholesterol. He has been told that if he doesn’t lose at least 25 pounds, stop smoking, and start exercising, he’ll be at great risk for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. The odds of the man accomplishing Read More
by Sheryl S. Jackson Population health management is not a new concept, but it is taking center stage in the health care industry’s transformation. Driven by the economics of a transition from a fee-based payment system to a value-based payment system, population health management is an important strategy to reduce the cost of care while Read More
Next CEOs may come from outside the industry According to a survey conducted for executive search firm Ferguson Partners, health care executives who were asked to name the top three outside industries likely to produce tomorrow’s health system leaders chose finance, (92 percent), hospitality (55 percent), investment (40 percent), and pharmaceutical (33 percent). Manufacturing, information Read More
by Mark S. Gothberg Why would the City of Hope, a Los Angeles area research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes, and other life-threatening diseases, participate in the 125th Rose Parade on New Year’s Day? For pretty much the same reasons it has been involved in this world-famous parade, held in Pasadena, CA, for the Read More
by Dan Dunlop The best marketers have always been accomplished storytellers, and that is still the case today. The stories they craft are meaningful and connect with the audience in a manner that meets some fundamental need – educational, informational, emotional, or entertaining. The most effective stories allow the audience members to become part of Read More
// By Joyce Miller and Beverly Schulman // The road to the rise of the patient experience A number of studies show links between desirable clinical outcomes and high patient satisfaction scores. Medicare and other payers are beginning to tie reimbursement to high patient satisfaction scores. In short, patient satisfaction has emerged as a key Read More
by Peter Hochstein You know the drill: Effective hospital advertising campaigns should consist of a single idea and a single graphic treatment to produce results with the sheer power of a concept, preferably emotional. Licensed for 760 beds, Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, KS, has taken a decidedly contrary route. Faced with an unusual marketing Read More
by Diane Atwood How comfortable would you be clipping the nails of a fidgety two-year-old? This simple task makes many parents fairly anxious and has landed more than one child in the emergency room with a cut or infected nail bed. There had to be a safer and easier-to-use tool than regular nail clippers, thought Read More
by Michele von Dambrowski “The big bad wolf is accountable care and it makes … your primary care practices more important than they ever have been in the past,” points out Phyllis Marino, vice president of integrated marketing for University Hospitals in Cleveland. “The bottom line for us as marketers,” Marino told attendees of the Read More
by Ritch K. Eich, PhD In the game of professional baseball there are two levels of contest and two levels of play: the World Series and everything else. This model translates now and again to organizational management – though hardly as often as business authors would like us to believe – and under extreme circumstances Read More
by Michele von Dambrowski Not only are Quick Response codes dead, they “should have never lived,” claims Dean Browell, PhD, executive vice president for the social media strategy firm Feedback in Richmond, VA. Browell likens QR codes to the ill-fated CueCat, a cat-shaped code reader that plugged into a computer like a mouse. Wired and Read More
by Cheryl L. Serra Members of the Spirit of Women in Springfield, MA, recently had the opportunity to see and hear humorist and work-life balance expert Juliet Funt, daughter of Allen Funt, host of the 1970s TV show “Candid Camera.” They may also take advantage of a discount on the cost of mini-med school, an Read More
by Peter Hochstein So there it was, a sprawling health care behemoth, at first glance scarcely recognizable as a single entity. It was named Novant Health, created in 1997 by the merger of two North Carolina organizations, Carolina Medicorp and Presbyterian Healthcare, into a single system. Over time, other organizations joined Novant Health until the Read More
by Cecily Lohmar The last decade has seen considerable growth in health care service lines, most often with the objective of expanding the more profitable services. At the same time, there have been numerous market changes – with more to come. Service lines have been an effective model for improving quality and cost in the Read More
by Michele von Dambrowski Everyone knows that mobile is hot, observes Christian Twiste, vice president of interactive services at BlueSpire Strategic Marketing. But what everyone struggles with, including large Internet companies, is how best to address the different ways that people interact with their mobile devices. “A lot of mobile users are either bored, busy, Read More
Survey: Cost transparency major factor in provider and plan choice A survey of insured health care consumers released last month by TransUnion, a credit information and information management services company, reveals that 55 percent of consumers have started paying more attention to the details of their medical bills during the past year. Two-thirds (67 percent) Read More
by Michele von Dambrowski Among the many roles of marketers is the job of chief marketing integration officer, which usually involves the subject of brand. “It’s a subject we all know and love,” says Susan Solomon, vice president of marketing and communications for St. Joseph Health, an integrated health system based in Irvine, CA. In Read More
by Nancy Vessell Keith Smith, MD, is a soldier of free-market health care, and he wants to start a price war. He has fired the first volley by posting guaranteed, all-inclusive prices for most procedures performed by his Surgery Center of Oklahoma (SCO) on its website (www.surgerycenterok.com). The outpatient surgery center’s prices are often one-fifth Read More