Comprehensive Cancer Center

VCU Health Proves Non-Traditional Marketing Methods Can Pay Off

Cynthia Schmidt, director of marketing, VCU Health

As a health care marketer, how do you get a consumer to care about where she goes for her mammogram? About one in eight women will develop invasive breast cancer in her lifetime. Studies have found that having screening mammography reduces breast cancer mortality by 40 percent in women of average risk between the ages Read More

How VCU Cancer Center Used Napkins to Promote Mammography

Althea Fung

A message on a pink napkin delivered with your food truck order highlights convenience for workers in downtown Richmond. // By Althea Fung // About one in eight women will develop invasive breast cancer in her lifetime. Studies have found that having screening mammography reduces breast cancer mortality by 40 percent in women of average Read More

How Do Organizations Embrace and Embed Consumer-Centric Values?

Steven K. Klasko, MD, MBA, former president, Thomas Jefferson University, and CEO, Jefferson Health

Let’s face it. Health care is a maze, and patients often feel like the rat, trying to get through and hitting one dead end after another. More often than not, health systems don’t prioritize what matters to patients. And even calling patients “patients” instead of “consumers” may serve to maintain the status quo. In the Read More

8 Dimensions of Patient-Centered Care Revisited and Reaffirmed

Ryan Donohue, corporate director of program development, NRC Health

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // The 2021 book Patient No Longer asks the question, “What makes the top organizations in the country unique?” Let’s face it. Health care is a maze, and patients often feel like the rat, trying to get through and hitting one dead end after another. More often than not, health Read More

Expansion Facilitates Cancer Treatment for Orange County Residents

City of Hope

Getting a cancer diagnosis is bad enough. Having to jump on the freeway and drive two hours each way to access care adds significantly to the stress. But that’s what many residents of Orange County, California did when they needed highly specialized cancer care. “Your first shot is your best shot, because it’s really important Read More

City of Hope Expands to Orange County

Nisha Morris, vice president of marketing communications, City of Hope Orange County

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // To meet the expected demand for highly specialized cancer services in Orange County, City of Hope has opened four cancer treatment sites and is currently building a 190,000-square-foot cancer center, scheduled to open next year. A separate specialty hospital will be ready to open its doors in 2025. The Read More

New York Proton Center’s Purpose-Driven Brand

Patrick Curry, marketing and communications consultant, New York Proton Center

// By Wendy Stark Healy // It’s easy for health care organizations to articulate what they do and how they do it. But they sometimes struggle to understand their brand purpose — their “why” — especially in connecting with patients. Purpose-driven organizations outperform competitors, increase market share, attract better talent, and do better overall, according Read More

It’s Not Your Usual Hospital Advertising Target Audience. Or Message. Or Media Plan. So What is Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Ad Campaign Up To?

Peter Hochstein

// By Peter Hochstein // Sometimes there’s more to hospital advertising than recruiting and reassuring patients. One thing’s fairly certain. When a hospital with facilities that are pretty much limited to the Boston area starts advertising in New York and other major metropolitan centers around the nation, they must be doing something other than trying Read More

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

Brad Fixler, vice president of marketing at University of Colorado Health

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

Clearing Up Brand Confusion at Georgia Cancer Center

Aubrey Hinkson, AVP of marketing for Augusta University Health

What would you do if your ads were actually sending your customers to your competition? Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University recently faced this challenging scenario. Further complicating matters, the brand had gone through several name changes in recent years, leaving its target audience confused about what the health system was and what it stood Read More

Marketing Science Plus Soul Equals Brand Success for City of Hope

Lisa Stockmon, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at City of Hope

When a young woman named Kommah was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, she was told she had just a 5 percent chance of surviving. Gus, a firefighter, had to forgo saving others’ lives to focus on his own fight against leukemia. Today, both Kommah and Gus have beaten the odds, thanks to Read More