// By Jane Weber Brubaker // At the 2018 SHSMD conference in Seattle, we sat down with Priya Bathija, vice president of AHA’s Value Initiative, and Brian Griffin, SHSMD’s senior editorial specialist, to learn about the program, its scope, and its goals. Launched in December 2017, the Value Initiative’s mission is to be a change Read More
// By David Marlowe // In a recent SHSMD discussion board posting, one member raised the question: “Do you continue to market your specialists that are booked out for six weeks?” This posting highlights a challenge that has faced marketers in medical groups, hospitals, and health systems for many years — do we yield to Read More
Notable Health Care Advertising In a hospital setting, changing employee routines and behaviors can save lives — but the change may call for altering the entire institutional culture. A memo to staff likely won’t work. What will? Signature Healthcare discovered some of the answers, involving an internal advertising campaign that began in 2015 and is Read More
Length of stay (LOS) is the duration of an inpatient episode of care, calculated from day of admission to day of discharge, and based on the number of nights spent in hospital. By tracking LOS, hospitals seek to improve processes and prevent errors, which ultimately lowers costs. But for Anne Arundel Medical Center, a 350-bed Read More
// By Althea Fung // At the 2018 SHSMD Connections conference in Seattle, SHSMD convened a series of presentations on value as part of its “Value Initiative.” What does value mean for health care organizations? How can they achieve it? One of the presenters, Jessica Farrar, director of strategic planning and decision support at Anne Read More
Physician burnout is a hot topic, but effective solutions have been more elusive. In March 2017, 10 CEOs of the nation’s most prominent health systems examined physician burnout, proposing an 11-item call to action (Health Affairs). In a new article, Susan Emerson, senior vice president of strategic planning and business development at Private Health News/MedNews Read More
// By Susan Emerson // Physician burnout is a hot topic, but effective solutions have been more elusive. In March 2017, 10 CEOs of the nation’s most prominent health systems examined physician burnout, proposing an 11-item call to action (Health Affairs). The Collaborative for Healing and Renewal in Medicine published an eight-step framework this year Read More
// By Althea Fung // Picture this: A patient goes to her primary care physician with complaints of dark, dry skin patches on her arms. The doctor, who is a staff physician at a large health system in New York City, quickly determines that she has acanthosis nigricans and prescribes a topical ointment. The doctor Read More
Have you considered contracting your services directly with large employers in your area? There is a growing movement to bring employers and health care organizations together to provide high-quality care for patients while managing costs and making them more predictable. Changing forces in the health care field are leading organizations to implement a variety of Read More
// By Lisa D. Ellis // Have you considered contracting your services directly with large employers in your area? There is a growing movement to bring employers and health care organizations together to provide high-quality care for patients while managing costs and making them more predictable. SHSMD recently released Futurescan 2018-2023: Healthcare Trends and Implications, Read More
Is your organization truly on the same page as your physicians? If not, you may be missing important opportunities to maximize the quality and costs of the care you provide. Poor alignment among management and medical staff can cost you greatly—in lower patient satisfaction, lower physician retention, and reduced profit margins. “The relationship between physicians Read More
// By Lisa D. Ellis // Is your organization truly on the same page as your physicians? If not, you may be missing important opportunities to maximize the quality and costs of the care you provide. Poor alignment among management and medical staff can cost you greatly—in lower patient satisfaction, lower physician retention, and reduced Read More
“If what we’ve seen over the past year is any indication, 2017 won’t be for the faint of heart,” says Lindsay R. Resnick, Executive Vice President at ReviveHealth, a Weber Shandwick company. “Combine the dynamics of socioeconomic-political tensions with the massive transformation happening across health care’s ecosystem—regulatory, technology, competition, innovation, finance, clinical—and you get an Read More
// By Lindsay R. Resnick // The new year is just around the corner and with it comes many challenges, along with many opportunities, for health care marketers. If what we’ve seen over the past year is any indication, 2017 won’t be for the faint of heart. Combine the dynamics of socioeconomic-political tensions with the Read More
How satisfied are your patients with the care they receive in your facility? Your answer may be based on the latest HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) data, which provides an important way to track key measures from the patient perspective. This can provide valuable insight into your strengths and weaknesses. But Read More
“It has been said that all motion is relative,” notes Ross K. Goldberg. “If that is indeed true, then it’s entirely possible to go backward by simply standing still if the world around you is changing.” Goldberg, President of Kevin/Ross Public Relations in Southern California, says that “[o]ver the past half-dozen years, those entrusted with Read More
An Interview with William Maples, M.D. // By Lisa D. Ellis // How satisfied are your patients with the care they receive in your facility? Your answer may be based on the latest HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) data, which provides an important way to track key measures from the patient Read More
“The concept of measuring the metrics associated with health care marketing and communications efforts is far from new,” notes David Marlowe, Principal of Strategic Marketing Concepts in Ellicott City, Maryland (and member of the Strategic Health Care Marketing Editorial Advisory Board). “When I entered the field in 1980, one of the first questions asked by Read More
// By David Marlowe // Albert Einstein is famously quoted as saying “everything that can be counted does not necessarily count and everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted”—probably an apt philosophy for the challenges facing marketers in health care provider settings relative to the area of “metrics.” These days we often refer to these Read More
// By Ross K. Goldberg // It has been said that all motion is relative. If that is indeed true, then it’s entirely possible to go backward by simply standing still if the world around you is changing. Over the past half-dozen years, those entrusted with health care communications have pushed forward by focusing a Read More
“Until recently, health care businesses often did little or no marketing as a general rule,” says Ken Robbins, CEO of award-winning digital agency Response Mine Interactive (RMI). “Now, we are experiencing a seismic shift to the point where online marketing such as paid and organic search have helped it become a clear and distinctive focus in health care. Read More
3 Ways Health Care Marketers Can Make Sure Callers Become Patients // By Ken Robbins // Until recently, health care businesses often did little or no marketing as a general rule. Now, we are experiencing a seismic shift to the point where online marketing such as paid and organic search have helped it become a Read More
Over the past year, Clay Cutchins of Franklin Street, a health care brand consultancy, worked with his team to help form the messaging and positioning of a new pediatric Accountable Care Organization (ACO) in Texas. This was not his first experience developing ACO marketing strategies. “Previously, we had helped sculpt the brand framework for a Read More
// By Clay Cutchins // Over the past year, my teammates and I helped form the messaging and positioning of a new pediatric ACO in Texas. Previously, we had helped sculpt the brand framework for a Medicare ACO. Recently, we decided to gather to cull some of the lessons we have learned in our own Read More
There’s more pressure today than ever before on hospitals and other health care organizations to provide high-value, patient-centered care for a growing audience. As a result, marketing departments are being pushed to find creative ways to leverage their shrinking budgets and resources to help achieve these ambitious goals. If this describes your situation, and you’re Read More