Quality and Outcomes

Population Health Management: Behavior-Change Marketing is One of the Best New Tools for Health Care Marketers, Communicators, and Strategists

[Webinar on Demand] Until recently, health care marketers have focused primarily on generating volume: putting as many “heads in the beds” as possible. But with recent changes in health care reimbursement, hospitals and health systems are transitioning from getting people into their facilities to keeping them healthy. And health care marketers are an important part Read More

A Fresh Take: How One Hospital Overcame Its Poor Reputation

Fresh Care. Delivered Daily. The concept is simple, yet this hand-picked brand message represents Columbia Memorial Health (CMH) perfectly. It also hits home on many levels for the hospital’s target area, which consists of Greene and Columbia counties of upstate New York. The CMH network has a total of 120 individual multi-specialty practitioners, a hospital, Read More

Small Hospital Takes a Fresh Approach to Marketing; How to Communicate Improvements and Overcome a Reputation That’s Out of Date

By Lisa Ellis Fresh Care. Delivered Daily. The concept is simple, yet this hand-picked brand message represents Columbia Memorial Health (CMH) perfectly. It also hits home on many levels for the hospital’s target area, which consists of Greene and Columbia counties of upstate New York. Hospital Tries To Overcome Past Reputation The CMH network has Read More

Leading Cancer Center Pilots Extensive Value-Based Payment Plan

By Lisa D. Ellis The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston has always been on the cutting edge when it comes to providing high quality care. For the past 25 years, this multi-disciplinary facility has been ranked in the top two cancer centers in the United States, according to U.S. News & Read More

How To Position Your Service Lines for Success in Today’s Marketplace

Howard Gershon

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

Small Hospital, Big Award: How Hill Country Memorial Achieves Quality Excellence

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award 2014 Recipient

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

Time To Overhaul Your OR?

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 the Surgical Services Executive Read More

Hospital Operating Room Overhaul Lifts Efficiency and Patient Satisfaction

Cheryl L. Serra

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

Market for Bariatric Services Grows as Patient BMIs Increase

Cheryl Haas

by Cheryl Haas Whether the cause is super-sized portions, pedestrian-unfriendly suburbs, or too many hours in front of the computer (or some combination of the above), Americans are becoming bigger at an alarming rate. The growing numbers of morbidly obese adults and children are fueling an increase in weight-loss surgery and medical weight-loss management services Read More

High Reliability Helps Connecticut Hospital Reduce Safety Errors by 80 Percent

Jane Weber Brubaker

by Jane Weber Brubaker In October, a nurse who had extensive contact with Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas became infected with Ebola. Although the worker had worn protective gear, the Centers for Disease Control confirmed the infection was caused by a “breach in safety protocol.” (AP) Shortly thereafter, a second 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

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

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

The Importance of Addressing Culture When Merging Different Entities

Sheryl Jackson

by Sheryl S. Jackson Keep Focus on Patient-Centric Care and Take Time to Engage Everyone in the Process Increasing financial and competitive pressures within the health care industry have spurred hospital acquisition of other health care providers – physician practices, urgent care centers, and imaging centers. While the reasons for acquiring other entities varies from Read More

Fast Takes: News & Trend Lines, May 2014

Brands still struggle with Twitter as a marketing tool According to a survey conducted in March by Social Media Marketing University, 45 percent of brands re­port that measuring results and ascertaining an ROI is the biggest challenge when using Twitter for marketing. Other significant challenges are building an audience (42 percent), engagement (37 percent), learning Read More

For This Virginia Hospital, Safety Is on the Daily Agenda

Nancy Vessell profile pic

by Nancy Vessell If the marketing director of the 445-bed Winchester (VA) Medical Center needs to track down the hospital’s busy medical directors, he knows where he can find them between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. each day. It’s a sure bet they will be in the Daily Safety Call. So ingrained is this daily Read More

Hospital Rewards Patients Who Take Care of Themselves

Diane Atwood

by Diane Atwood A man walks out of his doctor’s office with prescriptions to lower his blood pressure and choles­terol. He has been told that if he doesn’t lose at least 25 pounds, stop smoking, and start exercising, he’ll be at great risk for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. The odds of the man accomplishing Read More