mommyjenlin

Sometimes, another organizations PR missteps are an opportunity to learn how not to handle a PR crisis.   Just ask the any of the hospitals and health systems that have been in the media the past few weeks with HIPAA violations for data beaches. And what I have seen from the healthcare consumer side in the coverage and their responses have been arrogance, apathy and really stupid responses by senior management. I mean really, “We had a panic button and security camera.”   Does it matter in your response that the theft happened after hours?   Or the, “We had 60 days under the law before we had to report it.”   How do you think the public reads that answer of hiding behind regulations when their personal data is at stake? In an age of healthcare model evolution from provider-dominated models of decision making to consumer-directed models, those bygone days of being able to mismanage a PR crisis and response and get away with it are gone. Is your response to dive for un...

Given the extraordinary competing needs in healthcare organizations to meet the new reality of the healthcare market place from EMRs to employed physician, too new treatment and diagnostic modalities and declining reimbursements, marketing gets the short straw most of the time in those resource allocation decisions.   And that is a dangerous position to be in when a market is evolving to a semi-retail, consumer-centric model. But when you have constrained marketing resources, and you have to have a continuous presence in the market place to shift healthcare consumer’s attitudes, preferences and choices, the triple combination of earned media, public relations and social media working in a strategic, integrated fashion can achieve that end for you. Make no mistake about it, combining social media, public relations and earned media is hard. It is much more than a press release or an event. You have to develop relationships with reporters. You have to plant and cultivate story idea...

Faced with a cacophony of payment models from fee-for-service to value and risked based, with everything else in between, the evolving healthcare consumer, millions of people in the coming months gaining access to healthcare via the HIX insurance purchase, healthcare marketing becomes an even greater challenge than before. One size does not fit all. And growth is good. Sustainability...Presence...Perception...Experience... These are the four dynamics that direct-care healthcare providers need to understand and incorporate for success in their marketing operations and campaign efforts in a consumer-driven market. No longer nice to have, these four basic marketing concepts are now business requirements. Sustainability- The resources to effectively and continuously communicate brand and differentiate you’re offering across multiple channels. Presence - By maintaining a continuous presence across multiple channels as in so many other consumer-directed industries you build brand preference....

As healthcare evolves into a consumer-centric, semi-retail market with you existing in a multitude of reimbursement schemes each nuanced for a different market segment, have you   identified from a marketing perspective immediate actions to   improve your market position and revenue generation?   This isn't about massive advertising campaigns, gimmicks, wellness programs, etc. It’s more about getting the basics right, understanding who pays for what and how, the needs of your healthcare consumers, as well as driving demand, managing demand and moving demand to the right locations. In some circumstances it may even mean de-marketing certain services. This is a difficult question to answer given the focus and preoccupation with hospitals and health systems, with EMR, readmissions, cost reduction, quality improvement, etc., but at the very least, it does not mean that marketing leadership cannot make a difference in their organizations, lead change and make a meaningful, me...

How often do you call in from an outside landline or cell phone, to your organization to experience what a patient, a family member or a healthcare consumer does when calling?   This isn't such a strange question.   We all go through the evaluation process, seek the system we believe will reduce our cost, improve response and service and enhance the experience. But you know, sometimes we make the system so complicated, that we forget why someone calls us. For this I have coined Mike's Law:   "The smaller the organization, easier to use is the automated answering solution. The larger the organization, the more complex and harder the automated answering solution is to navigate." Use is very different than navigate. One implies simplicity, the other complexity. Let me give you an example. In calling a local hospital when a family member was hospitalized, it was really very straight forward. Dial in, hear the message, dial the extension or room number if you know it, o...

Your price information is out there. Your outcomes information is out as well. And you already have developed by word-of-mouth either a positive or negative patient experience reputation. Whether you like it or not, the horses are out of the barn and it’s too late to corral, get them back into the barn, and pretend like it never happened. As the hospital segment of the healthcare industry evolves to a more consumer centric model along the three dimensions of price, outcome, and experience, will you use that publicly available data to differentiate yourself to potentially establish market dominance along those brand dimensions that you excel? This is not a frivolous marketing question. This is about how you are going to be competing in the near future. The healthcare brands of hospitals and health systems will come to be defined by these attributes. And don’t think that the industry is so unified that no one will make that first attempt to define their market vies a vie their competitor...

With 2014 close at hand, and the healthcare consumer taking even more control in their healthcare choices in the rapid evolution of healthcare from a provider-dominated, and directed industry to a consumer-driven industry, significant changes need to take place in how we market and do business. Being responsive, outcome transparent, delivering an exceptionally consistent patient experience from first contact through post purchase, you're finding that meeting individual expectations, and needs is never easy. But as many successful healthcare companies will attest, these are no longer nice to have business requirements, but got to have requirements in order to survive. Not everyone will be in an ACO, Patient Medical Home, Medicare or expanded Medicaid program in 2014. You will still need to compete for that individual patient at some level. Bundled payments are not going to change that. In mean really, how much different will your price be from the competition? Healthcare consumers l...

Well, I don't know about you, but it's just a matter of time before the evolving healthcare consumer lets lose the barrage. It can be patients, doctors, employers, payers. Really anyone that has Internet access can participate in Customer Generated Media (CGM). It can be a great unknown. It can be helpful. It can be harmful. It can be your best friend, or your worse nightmare. It has the power to influence thousands, if not millions in this mobile social media aware society we live in. CGM can make your brand the greatest on the earth. It can send you to the ash heap of history. Anybody can blog. Anybody can do a video. Anybody can start an email campaign. Anybody can create a facebook page, web site or tweet. And anything they say or do has the chance to go viral. Sorry to say this, but not everyone thinks you doing the great job that you think you are. If your marketing department is not monitoring CGM and your patient experience from a brand perspective, then you and your h...

It's not, but from what I can tell, organizations aren't making nearly the changes at the pace they need to engage the healthcare consumer. Individuals and families are facing more out-of-pocket expense too as employers shift the cost of care to employees. Ditto everyone else for that matter too, government or private. When people pay more, they pay attention. Attention to the price. Attention to the experience. Attention to you. Attention to your marketing and brand. Hint- Its more than an outbound call from a nurse or physician extender. Here are nine patient engagement strategies you need to employ: 1. Integrate your engagement solutions . That means information is delivered seamlessly to patients, so that they can interact with you any way they want, when they want too. 2. Marketing should be using both push and pull messaging. Messaging needs to be relevant to the patient at the point in time that they need it. Personalized, customized, aware of the cultural heritage and ...

Or, send you to ligation hell because some data was misused, HIPAA was violated or patients just don't like the idea of marketers have access to data no matter how confidential and the security steps taken to keep it that way? Me, I believe big data will set healthcare organizations free and in the process their marketers as well. You see, healthcare marketing should be driven by data. Data used to identify unmeet healthcare consumer medical needs, where those unmet needs are located and in the design of the healthcare consumer friendly offering, priced at a point that they will be willing to pay. This is the way it always should have been, but hasn't. Goes for some healthcare IT and medical device manufacturers too. Now that Walgreens and other non-traditional providers of healthcare services are expanding and taking a retail approach which is driven by big data, hospitals and health systems as well as others need to start paying attention and looking at their healthcare servi...

It's a valid and serious question given Walgreens publically stated goal of being the "healthcare provider of choice for everyday health" . Walgreens took a big step in that direction with the approval of three ACOs. Interestingly enough in my 30 years of healthcare marketing, being the provider of choice has long been a staple of hospital and health system goals and objectives, business plans and presentations to the Board and medical staffs. Has anyone ever really accomplished that? That is more of a rhetorical question than anything else. But I am willing to bet that the answer is no. And I seriously doubt that it can be achieved from a hospital or health system marketing perspective. At least not to the extent that Walgreens and other non-traditional entrants into the healthcare marketplace that are well funded, understand consumer behavior and marketing, service development, pricing, customer experience and brand recognition can achieve. If you're serious about ...

Last week with the CMS announcement of an addition 106 ACOs, scant attention was paid to who those ACOs were awarded too. Buried in the 106 new ACOs announcement, you will find the Walgreens Company had three market applications awarded to them in partnership with 3 physician groups. The ACOs are in Texas, Florida and New Jersey. Their employer worksite clinics have been certified as medical homes . It is rumored that Walgreens is making plans for their own private health insurance exchange . A formidable competitor in the retail clinic space, they just became the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I have written about Walgreens eight separate times and their retail health efforts that would fundamentally change healthcare from a competitive and marketing standpoint since I started writing this blog. (If you're interested you can use the search function of the blog and find the posts. Just search the term Walgreens.) And for the most part the reaction has been "it's just a f...