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...

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 the burgeoning healthcare consumer looks at you from a price, outcomes and experience perspective, it naturally follows, well at least for me anyway, to wonder if bundled care and the price certainty that goes along with it can give you a market edge. I think it does and here’s why. Even as healthcare reform kicks into high gear in 2014, there will be a cornucopia of diversity in the payment models in the healthcare market place, and you have to be ready for all of them.   Bundled care and its price certainty can go a long way to differentiate yourself in the market to the healthcare consumers not in an ACO, Medical Home, or narrow networks, and drive profitable market share and revenue to you. It could even make you more attractive in a narrow network of providers.   And I am pretty sure employers will like it too, especially those that are self-insured. I get it that not all care can be neatly bundled into a healthcare consumer friendly package, but a lot of it can. And i...

With the reformation of   healthcare in the U.S. about to hit full speed ahead, most healthcare providers will need to undertake a full detailed examination of their position in the market vies a vie their competitors.    A simple question really that is not so easily answered unless you're being honest, and are doing the market research. Positioning is not a tactic. It is a strategy. There are really only three positions you can have in a market, superior, equivalent or inferior. And just saying you have the newest hi-tech equipment, offer world-class care, revolve around the customer,    uild a new building, or produce a white paper does not, let me repeat, does not mean you hold a superior market position, or even a thought-leadership position for that matter. If your market share has not changed much over the last few years, you’re not in a superior position. If revenue has not grown, but stayed steady, you are not in a superior position. If your products, ...

With the rapid progression of healthcare evolving into a consumer-centric market, how much more effective would your marketing, experience and outcomes campaigns be if your messaging in your Public Relations (PR) campaigns carried your brand messaging with the value, experience and outcomes it brings to the healthcare consumer? Simple really. More effective. More meaningful. More engagement. And if you aren't, than guess what? That is a missed opportunity. As healthcare organizations, we are expected by our audiences to advertise, write white papers, create case studies, write impactful sales materials, partner with leading market research organizations to present "groundbreaking" topical surveys and results, as well as other materials. That is a given. But what is the value of these same messages being crafted in such a way through PR to your organization? The more people say they don't believe what they read and see, the more that they believe what they read and see...

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...

As the pace of the evolving healthcare industry continues to accelerate, I was thinking the other day about what lessons in patient engagement from other healthcare industry segments could improve hospital patient engagement?  I define that as meaningful patent engagement for managing population health, changing health behaviors, keeping members in network in risk sharing agreements and improving the patient experience for value-based agreements seem to me to be mission critical business issues. It occurred to me that specialty pharmacies have been engaging patients for a long time now, and there are lessons that could be applied to hospitals, and other healthcare providers as they learn how to meaningfully engage patients. Special pharmacy by its very nature requires them to be highly engaged with the patients due to the nature of the drugs, dosage side effects, back box warnings, limited distribution, FDA adverse event reporting etc., but that doesn't mean that there are no lesso...

There is an article in the March, 2013 issue of Hospitals and Health Networks, "Is going it ALONE still an option for your hospital? YES!". It covers briefly the mission critical decisions and viewpoints, but sadly, it left untouched any discussion of marketing's role in all of this. So not being able to leave well enough alone, I started thinking about what role and competencies of marketing that would be needed to be in play to remain an independent, stand-alone hospital in an era of reform. First challenge, the current state of hospital marketing overall is not good enough and needs leadership, vision and new competencies. The second and even harder challenge is that hospital leadership is clueless about healthcare consumerism, how you market to the healthcare consumer and the marketing investment required, but they think they do. The third major challenge is admitting to the "I don't know healthcare consumer marketing" challenge in number two. If you...

Recent figures indicated that owned medical practices by hospitals and health systems are losing $170K a year. It's causing a lot of angst in the leadership suite and with the Board of Directors in hospitals and health systems. And everyone knows these losses are unsustainable. There are of course many reasons for this, some are structural, some are organizational, some are cultural, some are management decisions made and all playing a part in why the practice is losing so much money. But one reason should never be because you don't market that medical practice effectively. And sadly, there is a lot of ineffective medical practice marketing going on by hospitals and health systems. Medical practices are one of the few remain opportunities to drive volume and revenue. Its sure not the hospital, that's the last place you will be wanting to drive volume, especially to the inpatient side. The drive to create ACOs in a value-based payment environment demands a different t...

As I look across the hospital and health system landscape, one thing that has struck me for the most part, is that little attention is paid to social media outside of using it as a billboard for various programs and announcements. Doesn't matter whether or not if it's a clinical service or wellness program to heralding quality awards, its static. There seems to be a lack of creativity and engagement that one would think is the hallmark of a vibrant healthcare consumer engagement strategy on a social media platform. But then, maybe that is the problem and the solution? That there is no vibrant social media strategy to engage the healthcare consumer, so it just becomes another marketing channel to yell at someone about how you provide " world-class" care. Okay, that's a little synclinal, but healthcare is evolving in ways we didn't imagine which includes how networked the healthcare consumer is today. Yet we continue to reach out to that networked healthcare con...

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 ...

Living in a large metropolitan area with some pretty well recognized system heavyweights and Academic Medical Centers, I am fortunate enough to see a good deal of hospital and health system advertising. Anyhow, happy smiling patients, doctors looking intently into a microscope, nice building exterior shots and high-tech equipment all promoting, something, but clearly not the brand. High production values and in most cases using hired talent instead of employees. The best one was a group of specialists standing and proudly discussing the quality of the air in the patient rooms. Really? I have said it before and I am saying it again, where is the differentiation? And what does the statement: "We have surgical air quality in all the rooms", mean? Does it even matter to a potential patient. "Quick, take me to that academic medical center that has really clean air in the rooms!", said the patient. Really? Food for thought Healthcare is changing and marketing needs to cha...

With healthcare changing so rapidly, is it time to move healthcare marketing beyond " it's all about us" to "it's all about you" through focused brand architecture containing a clear and compelling brand promise that proves every day the value of your healthcare brand to the healthcare consumer? Unless you are a brand new provider in the market, you have been beating the healthcare consumer for years now all about your features and benefits. They get it. In today's brave new world, it's about brand value to the healthcare consumer, perceived and real along several dimensions that most healthcare organizations haven't paid too much attention too, but the healthcare consumer is. Your brand will be viewed and will be challenged by multiple audiences along these dimensions: price; outcomes; experience; access; convenience; and choice. And if you don't have answers to these brand attributes that healthcare consumers are starting to look for, then ...

If you think because reform and the Affordable Care Act that marketing is just an unnecessary expense and you don’t need to invest resources, then you are in for a rude awakening. In the coming days, weeks, months and years ahead, marketing will become as important a department in healthcare organizations as another other department. Here are the 10 market factors impacting why you need an “A” level marketing operation. Now. 1. Brand. Your healthcare brand will take more of a front and center stage in the new healthcare environment. It’s not just the logo or how displayed. It’s now about what your brand stands for, your brand promise and how you deliver on that each and every day in every encounter. Do you even know what your brand promise is? 2. Competition. Here it comes on a lot of different levels. On price. On outcomes. On organizational transparency. On patient experience. Long gone are the days of build it and they will come. Also gone are the days when you could get way w...