Does Your Hospital’s Newsletter Need a Makeover?
// By Lisa D. Ellis // This article is part 2 of Yes, Your Newsletter Can Still Be Relevant: How One Community Hospital Rewrote Its Own Story—and How You Can, Too.
Patient Experience
Subtopics: Patient Satisfaction, Surveys, Scores, Transparency, etc.
Subtopics: Patient Satisfaction, Surveys, Scores, Transparency, etc.
The 3 Pillars of Successful Health Care Marketing; Lessons from Recent Neuroscience
Neuroscientific research is helping marketers better understand how to reach the inner recess of our audience’s brain, which, because it has been evolving for millennia, still makes decisions better suited for survival on the savannas of Africa than in today’s world of modern health care. Understanding the subtle nuances of neuroscience—and the evolutionary-biased brain—will provide Read More
Secret Shoppers Provide Key to Unlocking Customer Improvement Efforts for Health System
How to Embrace a Similar Strategy … and Keep Patients Coming Back // By Lisa Ellis // Ever wished you could get a bird’s eye view of what your competition is doing so you could use the information to sharpen your own efforts and make them more effective? Some health systems are turning to secret Read More
A Cute Solution To A Common Health Care Marketing Challenge
A picture is worth a thousand words—and that’s especially true when you’re talking about adorable babies. Premier Health, a multi-hospital southern Ohio health care system with 1,892 licensed beds and more than 868,000 annual outpatient visits, was looking for a fresh way to to reassure future moms that its health care system offers lots of birthing Read More
It’s Personal: How One Woman’s Story Helped Spread the Word About a Community Hospital’s Oncology Services
// By Lisa Ellis // “I have breast cancer. I need a mastectomy. Possibly more. I found out earlier today, and my mind is still reeling …” These words are from the journal of a 38-year-old woman named Megan, who lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and recently went through a roller coaster of emotions after being diagnosed with Read More
Meet the Millennials: Your Newest Health Care Customer
// By Ruth Padilla, MA and David Zirkle, PhD // Some savvy hospitals are turning to the latest technological advances to engage younger health care consumers. Millennials, who are defined as individuals between the ages of 18 and 34, will surpass Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation in 2015. Also known as Gen Read More
Think It’s Difficult Getting People to Read TV “Supers” Listing Medical Outcomes? Premier Health of Ohio Found a Cute Solution
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // So let’s say you want to reassure future moms and about-to-be moms in your region that your health care system offers lots of birthing options and has lots of medical expertise—whether the moms turn out to have normal deliveries or deliveries with complications. Backing up that Read More
Looking To Improve Patient Satisfaction? Start With Your ED—and These 2 Communications Goals
When patients come to your hospital for services, do you take the time to spotlight your organization’s strengths and let them know how much you value their health and well-being? You should be marketing not only to prospective patients, but also to current patients when they come to your facility; you want them to know Read More
Try These Communication Strategies in Your ED to Increase Your Patient Satisfaction Scores
By Lisa D. Ellis When patients come to your hospital for services, do you take the time to spotlight your organization’s strengths and let them know how much you value their health and well-being? If not, you could be missing an important opportunity to improve your patient satisfaction ratings and also get them to recommend Read More
How to Map Consumer and Patient Behavior to Deliver More Marketing Impact
“In health care, it isn’t just the care that’s changing,” notes Claire Hovis, Vice President and Account Director of Capstrat, an agency that helps health care clients and others tell their stories with power and persuasion. “Power is changing.” She says “expert-driven” communications—which in the past have given providers and large corporations a strong position Read More
Yes, It’s Personal: How UConn Health Markets an Individualized Approach to Medical Care; A Game Plan to Follow
By Lisa D. Ellis Most people know the University of Connecticut because of its success in running one of the top college basketball programs in the nation. But this small state school has also been gaining a big reputation off the court, too, through its cutting-edge health care organization, which has been accomplishing big things Read More
How Marketing Communications Can Navigate Patients Right to Your Door: 4 Steps to Get Your Facility on Your Customer’s Map
By Claire Hovis In health care, it isn’t just the care that’s changing. Power is changing. “Expert-driven” communications that placed providers and large corporations atop the information market are giving way to a generation of empowered consumers who are more engaged and have higher expectations. Access is changing. The Affordable Care Act has brought health Read More
How To Position Your Service Lines for Success in Today’s Marketplace
Service lines may be the mainstay of your organization, but are you using them strategically for the realities of today’s marketplace? If not, you could be missing some important potential for getting, and keeping, your patients. Health care reform has changed the way most hospitals do business—and the impact includes an increased emphasis on value Read More
Restructuring Service Lines for Success
Service lines may be the mainstay of your organization, but are you using them strategically for the realities of today’s marketplace? If not, you could be missing some important potential for getting, and keeping, your patients. Responding to the Current Climate Health care reform has changed the way most hospitals do business—and the impact includes Read More
Is Your Organization Poised for Success as Empowered Consumers Take a More Active Role In Their Health Care Management?
Consumers want ease, convenience, and price transparency when purchasing health care—all the things they have when purchasing everything else. This means they are now assuming a more active role managing their health care decisions through participation in consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs), which have been around for about 10 years, and more recently through public and Read More
Small Hospital, Big Award: How Hill Country Memorial Achieves Quality Excellence
Hill Country Memorial (HCM) in Fredericksburg, TX—a nonprofit organization serving a rural area with a population of just 10,000—might seem like a long-shot for a prestigious national award. Nonetheless, HCM was one of just four organizations nationwide to receive a 2014 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for achieving excellence in its efforts. Back in 2007, Read More
Hospital Operating Room Overhaul Lifts Efficiency and Patient Satisfaction
by Cheryl L. Serra Satisfied patients are a powerful marketing tool for health care organizations, as one hospital learned when it overhauled the scheduling and management of its operating rooms (ORs). The efforts led to increased efficiency and patient satisfaction and helped boost profitability. Dr. Adam Blomberg, Vice Chief of Anesthesiology and Co-Medical Director of Read More
Rebranding Is Culmination of Two-Year Process to Strengthen Patient-Focused Culture
by Sheryl S. Jackson Since its humble beginnings in 1895, the 20-bed Macon (GA) Hospital has grown to become the Central Georgia Health System. It comprises the Medical Center of Central Georgia, a 637-bed, full-service, acute care hospital, along with 30 entities that include other clinics, specialty-care centers, and community hospitals. In September 2014, the Read More
Improved Patient Flow in Hospitals: How to Break Through the Bottlenecks
by Sandra Marchetti Backups and delays are a common, but always unwelcome, part of the health care process. Patient flow problems are a source of anxiety and long waits for patients, as well as frustration and inefficiency for providers. According to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, many U.S. hospitals have problems with achieving optimal patient Read More
Dr. Devi Shetty’s Health City Envisions a New Kind of Medical Tourism
by Cheryl Haas Devi Shetty, MD, is out to change the world of health care delivery through compassion, quality, and affordability. India’s most renowned heart surgeon and Chairman of Narayana Health has built a chain of 21 medical centers that cut costs so substantially that they can provide clinical excellence at a fraction of the Read More
Does Employee Engagement Matter?
by Cynthia King, PhD, and Daniel King, MS No longer is it enough to have satisfied employees who just want to “get by.” Instead, it is essential that hospitals and health systems cultivate a working environment that promotes and sustains highly engaged employees who are loyal to their organization. Highly engaged individuals are not only Read More
Nursing as a Strategic Differentiator: Think Anew
by Gloria Sanchez-Rico, RN, BSN, MBA, NEA-BC Old stereotypes die hard, and nowhere is this more true than when it comes to nursing. For while nurses continue to provide exceptional bedside care and remain the single greatest contributor to a good or bad patient experience, anyone who thinks their contribution ends there should think again. Read More
Internal Communications: Informing Your Organization’s Cheerleaders and Ambassadors
by Cheryl L. Serra Sure, you want the world to know about the snazzy new piece of equipment your hospital has purchased. And of course you want to sound the bugle about the big-name doc who’s joined your staff. There are ads to buy and PSAs to write, for sure. But what about what some Read More
Mobile Clinics: A Proactive Public Health Strategy
by Jared Kebbell Mobile health clinics are becoming an increasingly important part of the American health care system. They represent a move toward a more proactive public health strategy, seeking to bring care to those in need and the uninsured rather than waiting for them to seek it themselves in expensive emergency rooms. To many Read More
Supermarket Chain Offers Infusion Services
by Nancy Vessell When a Midwest supermarket chain began offering chemotherapy and other infusion services, a few heads were turned. “When I first learned about it, it did catch me by surprise. To my knowledge, I haven’t heard about other grocery chains getting into this [medical area],” says Michael Abrams, managing partner of Numerof & Read More