Coronavirus

New Technology Helps Target Health Disinformation at the Source

Sarah Brandt, executive vice president of partnerships at NewsGuard

As marketers, we spend time and resources to take full advantage of the internet. We want our content to show up at the top of the search results page. We want our brand to be trusted. We want our physicians to be the ones patients find and choose. But as we’ve seen over the past Read More

New Campaign Features Health Care Workers Encouraging Mask Use

The coronavirus continues its rampage throughout the country, sickening people, taking lives, devastating the economy, and overwhelming our health systems. Even if we are not sick, COVID-19 wears down our will to keep fighting until vaccines are widely available. That includes abiding by public health guidance: avoiding large group gatherings, social distancing, handwashing, and wearing Read More

Can You Leverage the Anxious Language of a Pandemic to Build a Stronger Hospital Brand? Here’s What Nemours Children’s Health System Did

Sarah Sanders, vice president and chief marketing officer of Nemours Children’s Health System

// By Peter Hochstein // You might think that co-opting language associated with COVID-19 could scare people away. Instead, it called attention to advertising that helped to reassure worried parents. Let’s clearly state a few factual negatives first. Tilt, the advertising agency behind the campaign you’re about to read about, is not the same Tilt Read More

Wearing Is Caring: Inspiring a National Movement to #MaskUp

#MaskUp

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // If marketing is about influencing people to change behaviors, then a new public service campaign launched just before the Thanksgiving holiday — #MaskUp — is marketing at its best. The coronavirus continues its rampage throughout the country as of this writing in early December, sickening people, taking lives, devastating Read More

Don’t Let Coronavirus Steal Your Perspective

Using Amara’s Law to Analyze Pandemic’s Effect on Marketing // By Jeff Stewart // VITAS Healthcare AVP of digital communications Jeff Stewart urges marketers to stick with fundamental marketing principles and keep focused on consumer needs — especially during a time of unpredictability such as the coronavirus pandemic has caused. The annual health care marketing Read More

COVID Has Lingering Effects For Providers and Consumers

Daniel Fell, Optum

“The repercussions of consumers putting off both routine and essential care (most likely a result of both the voluntary shutdown of elective procedures around the country by many health systems as well as growing concerns over being exposed to the virus) are significant,” says Daniel Fell of Optum. “From both a public health and a Read More

Los Angeles Archrivals Team Up for the Greater Good

Rhoda Weiss, Ph.D., president of Rhoda Weiss Consulting Group, and co-chair, Becker’s Healthcare 11th Annual Meeting Virtual Experience

Los Angeles is home to many world-class health care organizations, and they compete vigorously for the same patients. But even in a competitive market, joining together for the greater good may be the best way to get an important message across to the community. “It became apparent early on that people were not accessing health Read More

Consumer Sentiment Evolving with COVID Spread

Daniel Fell, Optum

// By Daniel Fell // In early May, our company launched a biweekly tracking study to better understand and monitor consumer sentiment toward seeking health care services during the COVID pandemic. The Optum Consumer Pulse Survey asks a representative sample of 700 adult consumers nationwide how likely they are to visit different types of health Read More

“Care Bravely”: Rallying Cry for LifeBridge Health

Richard Cohen

// By Richard Cohen // One of the central issues when a health care organization acquires other hospitals or entities on the care continuum is how to get all the employees from its disparate parts on message. This was something that the folks at the Baltimore-based LifeBridge Health took to heart several years ago after Read More

What Are Patients’ Key Non-COVID Health Care Concerns?

Rob Klein, founder and CEO, Klein & Partners

“People will remember how they’re treated,” says Rob Klein, founder and CEO of Klein & Partners. “And how you treat them will determine whether your brand comes out of this with momentum.” Klein & Partners and The DRG recently released the results of the third wave of an online national survey measuring consumer reactions to Read More

Mitigating the Effects of Social Determinants of Health

Jill Feldstein, chief operating officer of IMPaCT

The pandemic is hitting hardest among certain racial, ethnic, and minority groups. Through mid-June, non-Hispanic Black people had a COVID-19 hospitalization rate about five times that of non-Hispanic White people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hispanic or Latino people had a hospitalization rate four times that of non-Hispanic White people. In Read More

Community Health Workers Bring Health Systems New Benefits, Value During COVID-19

// By Kyle Hardner // As COVID-19 has spread throughout the United States, it has shed new light on a decades-old question: the role of social determinants of health in defining overall health outcomes. The pandemic is hitting hardest among certain racial, ethnic, and minority groups. Through mid-June, non-Hispanic Black people had a COVID-19 hospitalization Read More

Iceland Comes Together To Sell (and Sing) The Power of Staying Home

Peter Hochstein

“A group of musicians in Iceland demonstrated that promoting social distancing doesn’t have to sound like somber, top-down marching orders from an authoritarian central command,” says SHCM contributor and copywriter Peter Hochstein. “Instead, they tapped into something uplifting, communal, and perhaps instinctively primeval.” Here’s an excerpt from Hochstein’s new story: I feel sorry for the Read More

Communication Strategies Evolve as Pandemic Restrictions Loosen

Suzanne Hendery, chief marketing and communications officer at Renown Health

During the initial stages of the pandemic, health care marketing leaders found their mission changing from brand and service-line promotion to crisis communication management, with staffs focusing efforts on sharing up-to-date information for patients and communities. Now that businesses are beginning to reopen, employees are returning to work, and restrictions on daily activities are loosening, Read More

Pandemic Recovery: Gearing Up for Business Development Marketing

Sheryl S. Jackson

// By Sheryl S. Jackson // Health systems across the country are cautiously restarting elective surgeries and trying to recover from financial losses incurred during the peak of the pandemic. How are leaders approaching this massive challenge? Here, industry experts walk us through their evolving communication strategies as their organizations pivot from crisis communications to Read More

How To Start Re-Ramping Business Development Marketing

David Marlowe

The United States has experienced hundreds of thousands of confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 100,000 deaths. On the economic side, millions have been furloughed or have lost their jobs. And, sadly, “we are not anywhere near done yet,” notes David Marlowe. Here’s an excerpt from Marlowe’s new article: The health care system has been hit Read More

Central Hub Keeps Communications Organized During Crisis

Tessa Court, CEO of IntelligenceBank

For most marketers, a pandemic like coronavirus is uncharted territory. Health care marketing and communications teams are working around the clock to craft and distribute content for patients, visitors, and staff. With the demand to churn out reliable content quickly, organizations may need help staying organized. “While media budgets for our clients are dropping by, Read More

A Community Rallies Around Its Local Health System

Andy Lyons, corporate communications director at Roper St. Francis Healthcare

From Girl Scouts donating cookies they couldn’t sell, to chaplains bringing lollipops to nursing stations, to colleagues making posters and shout-outs to frontline staff, coronavirus isn’t spreading only an illness, but kindness and cheer as well. As hospitals and health care organizations seek much-needed personal protective equipment for staff, communities are responding by donating comfort Read More

How MarTech Can Help Streamline Crisis Communications During COVID-19

Althea Fung

// By Althea Fung // For most marketers, a pandemic like coronavirus is uncharted territory. Health care marketing and communications teams are working around the clock to craft and distribute content for patients, visitors, and staff. With the demand to churn out reliable content quickly, organizations may need help staying organized. “While media budgets for Read More