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...

On March 31, a new data release for consumers took place with CMS posting individual hospital performance on eight Hospital Acquired Conditions (HAC). Reaction has been highly critical to say the least by physician and hospital groups. There are legitimate question as to the methodology used in some of the data and that does need to be revised. So the question came to me after reading the various groups denial of the data, pointing out its flaws and generally trying to deep six any potential informational credibility for the public-   i t's out there, so what is the brand opportunity if any? How Does Your Marketing/PR Department Counter Negative Data Releases From 3rd Parties? Hospitals and others are quick to bend over backwards and break their arms running ads and creating press releases when the data is in their favor or an award has been bestowed. This is not a criticism it is fact. Sometimes the information presented is misleading as well. When negative quality data is p...

The Chicago Bears held a press conference on January 5, 2010, after a dismal at best season long performance by management, the coaching staff and players. No need to go into the gory details; the lesson here is how not to handle public relations. For weeks now, the media and public has been in an uproar over team performance. This was exacerbated by a perceived lack of indifference and arrogance by the team leadership. Clearly a crisis communications situation if anyone in the PR department at Halas Hall was paying attention. The Press Conference A press conference is held, they trot out the team President, General Manger and Head Coach all in that order. The President speaks, apologizes and was contradictory in his remarks about the situation being unacceptable, change is needed, mistakes were made, but things are going to stay essentially the same. He spoke for 20 minutes which was 15 minutes too long. The GM gets up apologizes, says mistakes were made, change is needed, but things...