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
by Cheryl Haas On March 18, 2013 at precisely 11 a.m., employees of Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center unveiled their organization’s new name and logo. In a special ceremony, a group of employees – accompanied by a dramatic drum roll – revealed a 40-by-10-foot logo and a new visual identity, and the largest hospital Read More
Price and Quality Transparency to Gain Importance in Coming Years by Sheryl S. Jackson For almost seven years, the television show “Marcus Welby, MD,” featured a veteran general practitioner who focused on patients as people in an era when specialized medicine and technology were growing in importance. Many storylines had Dr. Welby listening to patients Read More
by Jane Weber Brubaker A helicopter hovers over a concrete embankment, floodwaters rising rapidly around the target of the rescue operation, a black lab, alone and struggling to keep his head above water. “Does everyone matter?” asks the TV commercial. The chopper drops a line and a rescue worker lifts the dog to safety. “Yes” Read More
by Nancy Vessell Obstetric emergency departments staffed 24/7 by obstetricians/gynecologists are popping up around the country, handling obstetric triage and emergent situations. Two of the newest – and the first in New Jersey – are Christ Hospital in Jersey City and Hoboken University Medical Center. Their parent corporation, CarePoint Health, says the OB EDs that Read More
by Sherry L. Stanislaw Although this century is only 13 years old, we have already seen an interesting evolution in how the health care industry views its consumers. It wasn’t that long ago when the popular term was “patient-centered care,” and although the words sounded nice, most hospitals had their share of challenges in truly Read More
by Peter Hochstein As hospitals continue to merge or in some cases drop their partners, marketers for those institutions find themselves challenged to explain what’s new and what’s the same about their organizations – even to their own constituencies. It was just such a need that led The Christ Hospital Health Network in Cincinnati to Read More
by Michele von Dambrowski Population health management is a strategy. It can be done on a small scale and in any market. Hospitals just have to do more of what they’ve been doing. Everyone will become a population health organization. Two experts shattered those common misconceptions about the business of population health management during a Read More
by Diane Atwood Richard Adair, MD, has been an internist for about 40 years. He is currently employed by Allina Health, a large not-for-profit network of hospitals and clinics in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. As is the case for health care providers across the country, Adair gets to spend, on average, about 20 minutes with Read More
by Joyce Miller, Jaren Wilson, and Beverly Schulman In recent years, the volume and variety of health care data has grown exponentially to the point that the term “big data” has become part of our vocabulary. Big data refers to data sets so large and complex that they are difficult to process. In short, big Read More
by Candace A. Quinn Marketers have spent the past 10 to 15 years focusing on emerging brand development initiatives for their organizations. Marketers want the brand equity of a Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, or Johns Hopkins Medicine, yet most of them represent the typical community-based hospital or health system that is slugging it out with Read More
by Sheryl S. Jackson Cancer care has become a significant service offered by more than 1,500 facilities accredited by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons, with community hospitals representing a growing number of accredited facilities. The capacity to meet cancer patients’ needs is an essential part of a hospital’s ability to Read More
Wide disparities in access and quality by state Access to affordable health care and the quality of care provided vary greatly for low-income people ($47,000 a year for a family of four) based on the state in which they live, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund. Geographic differences also extend to people Read More
by Peter Hochstein Yesterday’s irresistible news, the old saw used to go, is today’s bird-cage liner. A few striking advertising campaigns don’t suffer such fates, owing to advertising annuals and industry halls of fame that enshrine some nationally known promotions. But small regional campaigns, even if they do a great job and win awards, are Read More
by Barbara S. Long, APR For anyone involved in providing health care, having the roles reversed and becoming a patient or family member of a patient can be an eye-opening experience. Health care is not always a high-functioning, seamless system. In fact, at the bedside, you will experience cracks in the system that can make Read More
by Diane Atwood Akron General Health System shares the northeastern Ohio landscape with some big health care players, including Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals. Akron General Medical Center, a 532-bed teaching and research center, is one of several entities that make up the not-for-profit system. A major challenge, as it is for most marketers, is Read More
by Dan Fredricks Sour Grapes A hungry fox tried to reach some clusters of grapes that he saw hanging from a vine trained on a tree, but they were too high. So he went off and comforted himself by saying, “They weren’t ripe anyhow.” Moral: In the same way some men, when they fail through Read More
by Michele von Dambrowski A former marketing executive for Nike and Starbucks, Scott Bedbury entertained attendees of the 18th National Healthcare Marketing Strategies Summit with stories of the transformation of an elitist athletic shoe company and the reinvention of the coffee category. Author of A New Brand World: Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in Read More
by Peter Hochstein In recent months, this column has discussed several hospital advertising campaigns whose creators would sooner impale themselves on a scalpel than show a piece of medical equipment or a doctor wearing scrubs or a white coat. A typical defense of their position is that one advertising campaign featuring doctors and equipment looks Read More
by Barbara S. Long, APR There is no doubt that “smart” is the latest buzzword in technology. Smartphones, and increasingly smartcars, are commonplace. It’s easy to foresee a time in the near future when we’ll all use smart technology to control our home, work, and leisure environments with the blink of an eye or a Read More
by Michele von Dambrowski Consider these statements made by two speakers at a session of the 18th National Healthcare Marketing Strategies Summit in Scottsdale, AZ, earlier this year: “The ROI on internal branding is significantly higher than what you might achieve with external communications for probably 30 percent of the spend.” – Rob Rosenberg, President, Read More
by Sheryl S. Jackson Only direct word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family beat online reviews as the most trusted source of information, according to a 2012 Pepperdine University study. Even after receiving a personal recommendation, 86 percent of survey respondents say they would also use an online source to research a business or professional before Read More
by Deborah Borfitz In May 2012, Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, MD, joined a handful of hospitals testing WellTransitions, a post-discharge program being developed by Walgreens to help increase medication adherence and reduce preventable readmissions. More than a dozen hospitals were on board for the program’s rollout in October. Given outcomes to date, and Read More