// By Peter Hochstein // Despite specializing in kids exclusively, Boston Children’s Hospital confronts a wall of competition that hospitals elsewhere might find daunting. Liz Vanzura, chief marketing officer for Boston Children’s advertising agency, MMB, can list 10 other local hospitals that treat children—among them such formidable names as Mass General, Tufts Medical Center, and Read More
by Nancy Vessell With 40 to 60 new physicians arriving every year to serve an eight-hospital system and its medical group, where 40 people are involved in physician recruitment, onboarding, orientation, and retention, the opportunity for “dropped balls” measures in the tons. That’s according to Jim Zache, vice president of physician recruiting and physician relations Read More
by Peter Hochstein Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, more hospitals may begin offering health insurance, while insurance companies may increasingly supply some limited health care services. True, a few organizations, perhaps most notably Kaiser Permanente, have explicitly and extensively offered both health care and health insurance for years. And some health plans offer their Read More
by Kris Rusch “When it comes to health,” asserts an article in Harvard Men’s Health Watch, “males are the weaker sex throughout life.” Compared with women, men on average have more chronic illnesses, die at higher rates from diseases, and have a lower life expectancy. Men also take more risks with their health. They use Read More
by Sheryl S. Jackson The United States will be home to 27 proton therapy centers by 2017, almost double the number in operation at the end of 2013, according to U.S. Proton Therapy Outlook 2017, a report produced by RNCOS, a business research and consultancy firm. The growth of the specialized cancer treatment is attributed Read More
by Cheryl L. Serra Imagine bringing health care to patients instead of requiring patients to travel to health care. Ernie Clevenger, co-founder and president of CareHere, LLC, did just that. The result? His company has a health care clinic with a retail component, the CareHere Walk-In Clinic and Wellness Store, located in the Nashville International Read More
by Mark S. Gothberg Why would the City of Hope, a Los Angeles area research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes, and other life-threatening diseases, participate in the 125th Rose Parade on New Year’s Day? For pretty much the same reasons it has been involved in this world-famous parade, held in Pasadena, CA, for the Read More
by Dan Dunlop The best marketers have always been accomplished storytellers, and that is still the case today. The stories they craft are meaningful and connect with the audience in a manner that meets some fundamental need – educational, informational, emotional, or entertaining. The most effective stories allow the audience members to become part of Read More
by Peter Hochstein You know the drill: Effective hospital advertising campaigns should consist of a single idea and a single graphic treatment to produce results with the sheer power of a concept, preferably emotional. Licensed for 760 beds, Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, KS, has taken a decidedly contrary route. Faced with an unusual marketing Read More
by Michele von Dambrowski Not only are Quick Response codes dead, they “should have never lived,” claims Dean Browell, PhD, executive vice president for the social media strategy firm Feedback in Richmond, VA. Browell likens QR codes to the ill-fated CueCat, a cat-shaped code reader that plugged into a computer like a mouse. Wired and Read More
by Cheryl L. Serra Members of the Spirit of Women in Springfield, MA, recently had the opportunity to see and hear humorist and work-life balance expert Juliet Funt, daughter of Allen Funt, host of the 1970s TV show “Candid Camera.” They may also take advantage of a discount on the cost of mini-med school, an Read More
by Cecily Lohmar The last decade has seen considerable growth in health care service lines, most often with the objective of expanding the more profitable services. At the same time, there have been numerous market changes – with more to come. Service lines have been an effective model for improving quality and cost in the Read More
by Michele von Dambrowski Everyone knows that mobile is hot, observes Christian Twiste, vice president of interactive services at BlueSpire Strategic Marketing. But what everyone struggles with, including large Internet companies, is how best to address the different ways that people interact with their mobile devices. “A lot of mobile users are either bored, busy, Read More
// By Nancy Vessell // For the past decade, David Marlowe, principal of Strategic Marketing Concepts, based in Ellicott City, MD, has encouraged health care providers to consider pricing their services more strategically in order to gain market share. Here he answers questions about the latest in strategic pricing. First, what is strategic pricing, as Read More