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.
Strategic Issues/Trends
Subtopics: Thought Leadership, Market and Regulatory Landscape, etc.
Subtopics: Thought Leadership, Market and Regulatory Landscape, etc.
Speechless in Toledo: A Group Medical Practice Ad Compared Its Prices to Those of Local Hospitals. But Suddenly, Nobody Seems Willing to Talk About It.
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // Early this year, a group medical practice called the Toledo Clinic in Toledo, Ohio, got what must have seemed like a bright marketing idea. With the help of a mom-and-pop advertising agency called Modern TECHnique in Avon, Ohio, the clinic ran a full-page ad in the Read More
The Proof Is in the Pudding: Educational Campaign Mixes Up a Winning Recipe to Promote New Pediatric Hospitalists
// By Lisa D. Ellis // Sometimes simple messages can be the most effective. That’s what Signature Healthcare learned recently when it set out to promote a new relationship with The Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center. This partnership brings highly respected Boston pediatric specialists to Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital (about 25 miles Read More
Develop a Strong “Bench” of Future Health Care Management Talent
“The bench, which fuels [the] pipeline of an organization’s future leaders, is just as important in business as it is in sports,” says Ritch K. Eich, Ph.D. “Unfortunately, many health care organizations and hospitals underestimate the value of developing future leaders or developing a culture in which current leaders teach or mentor others to follow Read More
Tips for Marketing to the Booming Millennial Generation
“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,” note Ruth Padilla, M.A. and David Zirkle, Ph.D. “Also known as Gen Y, this group is becoming an increasingly important target for health systems, given its size and purchasing power.” Read More
How Louisiana’s Ochsner Health System Turned Dry Statistics into a Powerful TV Campaign
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // This is a story about a hurricane, a hospital system, and two advertising campaigns. It’s gleaned primarily from an interview with Kerry Graham, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Bohan Advertising in Nashville, Tennessee. Bohan was the advertising agency for the hospital system, Ochsner Health System, from 2007 Read More
Sending a Clear Message: Content Still Reigns Supreme
// By Jason Skinner // The decision process of a health consumer is changing, and as a health care marketer you must understand how to find and engage your audience using the power of content marketing. Consumers are bombarded with an average of 5,000 marketing messages a day. New research shows the average attention span 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
Leading Health Care in the Future
// By Ritch Eich // In my youth, I played several sports, like many boys of my generation. My friends and I didn’t know what sports camps or private lessons were. Often, our playing field was the street or an abandoned field next to the train tracks by an old cannery used to store excess Read More
Your Hospital Call Center: Costly “Extra” or Powerful Marketing Tool?
“A hospital ‘call center’ often has been considered an irritating expense health care organizations have to endure, because people use phones and want to reach a doctor or patient in the hospital,” Andrea Simon, Ph.D. says. “But maybe it’s time to ask, ‘What if we’ve always been wrong?’” Andrea J. Simon, Ph.D. is a corporate Read More
Building a Brand in a Crowded Market: One Large System’s Success Story
So let’s say you’re out to build a hospital system’s brand. And let’s also say you’re in one of the biggest markets (Dallas-Fort Worth) in one of the biggest states (Texas), competing against some of the biggest regional names in health care. While you’ve got a $2.7 million budget to work with, exclusive of direct 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
Health Care Convergence: Are You Ready for This New Model?
In pursuit of high-quality, cost-effective care that revolves around the patient, many health care organizations seek new ways to foster system-wide collaboration. This concept involves breaking down barriers that have traditionally separated payers, providers, and patients to enable everyone to work more closely together to meet common goals. Such a way of doing business, commonly Read More
Could You Gain by Affiliating with a Larger Health Network?
Is bigger better? For Grinnell Regional Medical Center (GRMC), a 49-bed rural hospital in Grinnell, Iowa, affiliating with the larger Mercy Health Network in Des Moines has certainly had its benefits. Back in 2009, when GRMC first decided to explore creating an affiliation with a bigger network, there was growing recognition that for a community Read More
Post-Merger Branding: How A Marriage of Equals Becomes More Than The Sum of Its Parts
“It’s a marriage made in heaven,” notes Melissa Fors, Executive Director of Marketing Strategy for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation: “In February 2014, two of the nation’s best-known substance abuse treatment organizations—Hazelden and the Betty Ford Center—said ‘I do’ to a merger. This agreement marked the culmination of more than 30 years of connectedness between Read More
Let’s Rethink Your Hospital Call Center
// By Andrea Simon, Ph.D. // A hospital “call center” often has been considered an irritating expense health care organizations have to endure, because people use phones and want to reach a doctor or patient in the hospital. But maybe it’s time to ask, “What if we’ve always been wrong?” Maybe a call center actually Read More
How to Build a Health Care Brand with Multiple Ad Agencies, Multiple Specialty Campaigns—and in the Face of Multiple Competitors. (Hint: It’s Complicated.)
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // So let’s say you’re out to build a hospital system’s brand. And let’s also say you’re in one of the biggest markets in one of the biggest states, competing against some of the biggest regional names in health care. Although, exclusive of direct marketing, you’ve got Read More
Is Your Organization Well Positioned to Adopt Value-Based Care? These 7 Questions Can Help You Assess Your Readiness
By Lisa D. Ellis In pursuit of high-quality, cost-effective care that revolves around the patient, many health care organizations seek new ways to foster system-wide collaboration. This concept involves breaking down barriers that have traditionally separated payers, providers, and patients to enable everyone to work more closely together to meet common goals. Such a way Read More
You Don’t Have to Go It Alone: Why One Rural Health Care Organization Joined a Larger Network—and What You Can Learn From Its Example
By Lisa Ellis Is bigger better? For Grinnell Regional Medical Center (GRMC), a 49-bed rural hospital in Grinnell, Iowa, affiliating with the larger Mercy Health Network in Des Moines has certainly had its benefits. This affiliation was approved back in 2009, after GRMC’s leadership decided to look for new ways to position itself so it Read More
Are You Ready for the Moment Your CEO Asks, “How Is Marketing Contributing To Our Revenue Opportunities?”
“Eighty percent of CEOs don’t really trust marketers,” says Mike Milligan, President of Legato Healthcare Marketing, Inc., citing a recent Fournaise Marketing Group survey of high-level decisions-makers. “This is painful for me to say because I’ve been on both sides of the health care marketing table. But I’ve also learned that before you can overcome a Read More
How One Health Care Provider Goes the Extra Mile to Reduce Its Environmental Footprint—and What You Can Learn From These Efforts
By Lisa D. Ellis The leadership at Kaiser Permanente recognizes the importance of not only caring for the people their health care system serves, but also of protecting the health of the communities where its members live, work, and play. That’s why, in addition to providing health and wellness services for its members, Kaiser Permanente Read More
The Best Marriages Are Built on Commonalities: How Two Organizations Became One—and What You Can Learn From Their Example
By Melissa Fors It’s a marriage made in heaven. In February 2014, two of the nation’s best-known substance abuse treatment organizations—Hazelden and the Betty Ford Center—said, “I do” to a merger. This agreement marked the culmination of more than 30 years of connectedness between the two organizations. A Snapshot of the Two Organizations Hazelden, founded Read More
What the Consumerization of Health Care Means for You: 5 Key Trends To Watch
“The consumerization of health care means your customer is now in control,” notes Lindsay Resnick, Chief Marketing Officer of KBM Group: Health Services. “They are comparing prices, quality, convenience, and outcomes as they post reviews; and, refer friends and family—one way or the other. And a constant stream of technology innovation makes it easier and easier 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
Think Like a Health Care CEO and Elevate the Role of Marketing
By Mike Milligan Eighty percent of CEOs don’t really trust marketers, according to a recent Fournaise Marketing Group survey of high-level decisions-makers. Eighty percent! This is painful for me to say because I’ve been on both sides of the health care marketing table. But I’ve also learned that before you can overcome a challenge, you Read More