Viewpoint: Strategies for Success

2020 Trends from SHSMD: Personalization as a New Discipline

By The SHSMD Team posted 19 hours ago
This is another one of SHSMD's blogs exploring top trends for 2020. Our first posting in the series featured trends in consumerism and patient experience . Personalization can take place anywhere and at any time during the customer journey. Ryan Younger, vice president of marketing at Virtua Health, notes that some of the common touchpoints for personalization in health care are: Marketing and advertising. Community outreach. Social media engagement. Digital channels. Selecting a physician. Communications. Patient portals. Making a first appointment. Walking in the door and being greeted. ...
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2020 Trends from SHSMD: Patient Experience as a New Mandate

By The SHSMD Team posted 7 days ago
Recently, SHSMD asked a small group of senior executives and young professionals in health care strategy what they think are the most important trends for 2020. The top results, which varied by discipline, included: Partnerships and collaborations. Metrics and analytics. Patient experience as a new discipline. Next-level personalization. New entrants to health care. Distributed health care (outside of traditional health care settings).  Over the coming weeks we’ll explore these trends in blog posts and other resources. Each blog post will highlight one or more trends, featuring commentary from hospital and health system ...
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Heading into the New Year with 2020 Vision

By The SHSMD Team posted 20 days ago
One of the greatest challenges health care marketing professionals face is meeting the expectations of leadership. Many times, the requests that flow into the marketing department require marketers to stray from already-formed – and already-budgeted – strategies. One way to get back to basics, according to Jennifer Horton, vice president of strategy at Ten Adams, is to return to the four core purposes of marketing, which they abbreviate as BERG: Brand awareness. Engagement. Reputation management. Growth. “As health care marketers, I think one of our big challenges is we get reactionary and spend all of our time fighting fires, ...
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What Does Population Health Really Mean?

By The SHSMD Team posted 12-18-2019
Population health is a term widely used in health care, but not everyone employs the same definition. Often its meaning depends on who is being asked. Health administrators may have different answers than those in academia. From a health care marketing perspective, population health encompasses a number of different factors. The challenge is balancing them all to ensure population health management succeeds — a topic discussed at the SHSMD Connections 2019 session "Population Health Defined and Explored," led by Susan Dubuque, principle of NDP Agency. Clearing the Confusion of Population Health The goal of Dubuque's session was to interactively gather ...
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Partnering with Disruptors: OhioHealth’s Collaboration with ChenMed

By The SHSMD Team posted 12-10-2019
Primary and preventative care is ripe for disruption and several new organizations, such as Oak Street Health and ChenMed, are moving into the growing area of primary care for older adults. Traditional providers face a variety of options to respond to these disruptors. They can ignore the disruptors, adopt new business models that take advantage of their scale and history, imitate the disruptors' strategies or collaborate. The wisest solution depends on the business environment and nature of the organizations but when two organizations have compatible missions and business goals, collaboration offers unique rewards. ChenMed's model is to serve moderate-to ...
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Measuring Marketing for Impact

By The SHSMD Team posted 12-03-2019
Marketing Measurement for Impact The marketing department at UC health in Cincinnati developed a process and dashboard that defines and displays its impact metrics. “This has drastically changed the conversation for us,” said Allison Neikirk, consumer insights and marketing manager for UC Health. “Leaders are realizing that marketing does not just ‘do billboards’ or make things ‘look pretty’.” While the dashboard is almost self-explanatory, the journey to that simplicity wasn’t always a smooth one. UC Health collaborated with Cincinnati-based health care marketing expert Mimi Rasor to implement a seven-step process for developing a dashboard: ...
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Arkansas Children’s Hospital Using Digital Ethnography for ‘Voice of the Customer’ Research

By The SHSMD Team posted 11-18-2019
Ethnography, or behavioral research, is one of the most powerful market research tools. Unlike focus groups and surveys, it investigates how people behave rather than what they say about their beliefs or actions. Digital ethnography tracks how consumers behave online, giving insights into the decisions they make and why. In a Business of Healthcare/SHSMD collaborative video and podcast, Jeff T. House, vice president of strategic marketing for Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Dean Browell, executive vice president and co-founder of Feedback, shared how they used digital ethnography to better understand how parents make decisions. House described the role ...
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Analytics: The King of Health Care Marketing Campaigns

By The SHSMD Team posted 11-12-2019
By The SHSMD Team One of the greatest assets a marketer has is data. Analytics not only provide insights about audience demographics, they also reveal behaviors and preferences that are necessary to guide marketing strategy. With mobile applications becoming a standard in every industry, analytics surrounding app users is critical for shaping both the app itself and who it is marketed to. Charlotte Wilson, director of digital marketing and analytics at OSU Wexner Medical Center, presented at SHSMD Connections 2019 on how data informs marketing decisions in both app and service line promotion. Using Data to Leverage Your Investment Last year, ...
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How To Create Presentations That Deliver

By The SHSMD Team posted 11-05-2019
If there's one thing marketers, directors, and C-suite members know they have to do, it's  present. Getting your ideas across to decision makers is a routine element of health care marketing —but that doesn't mean it's easy. Kenny Nguyen, CEO and co-founder of ThreeSixtyEight, an agency based out of Baton Rouge, said one of the biggest problems with today's presentations is lack of urgency. Nguyen and his partners operate Big Fish Presentations, a service line focused on "ridding the world of boring presentations." At SHSMD Connections 2019, Nguyen shared tips for creating presentations that deliver.  Replace Takeaways with To-Dos All presentations ...
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Composing a New Brand after a Merger of Equals

By The SHSMD Team posted 10-29-2019
After two New Jersey health systems, Meridian Health and Hackensack University Health Network, merged in 2016 to form a new, 16-hospital network, Hackensack Meridian Health, the marketing work had just begun. Rather than rebranding during the merger, the system leaders, including James Blazar, executive vice president and chief strategy officer, decided to wait until after the merger was complete. This would ensure that they were addressing the post-merger landscape needs and perceptions and allow time to engage staff and community stakeholders throughout the process. A merger of disparate equals The new organization's marketing team faced some unique ...
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The Marketing Mindset: How to Transform Health Care

By The SHSMD Team posted 10-21-2019
Why are marketing tools, techniques and approaches so important to transforming health care? In a Business of Healthcare/SHSMD collaborative video and podcast, Zeev Neuwirth, M.D., chief clinical executive for care transformation at Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina, said, "The field that really understands what people want and need is the field of marketing." Neuwirth, author of recently published Reframing Healthcare — Roadmap for Creating Disruptive Change , describes the "marketing mindset" that health care organizations need to adopt to thrive in the face of change and new entrants.  Neuwirth described health care as fundamentally about ...
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App Innovation to Support Health and Patient Loyalty Through Better ED Patient Experience

By The SHSMD Team posted 10-15-2019
In a Business of Healthcare/SHSMD collaborative video and podcast, Mark Jannone, senior director of Banner Health's Banner Innovation Group, described Banner's digital triage pilot that increased Banner's Net Promoter Score (NPS) among patients participating in the pilot by 40 percent, reduced inappropriate emergency department (ED) visits by 35 percent and almost halved ED wait times. This is one of the Innovation Group's projects to promote health while increasing patient recruitment and engagement, supporting Banner's business development endeavors. Reducing inappropriate ED use and patient frustration The app asks users about their symptoms and ...
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Diversification, Consumerism and Rural Hospital Strategy: Northern Maine Medical Center Purchases Retail Pharmacy

By The SHSMD Team posted 10-08-2019
Rural health care providers operate in conditions of tremendous uncertainty, uncertainty that affects their local communities' access to affordable high-quality care. Northern Maine Medical Center (NMMC), which serves rural, lower-income community of approximately 15,000 people near the Canadian border, sees diversification as a key strategy for the hospital and the community's well-being.  Convenience, Affordability and Post-Discharge Medication Compliance In response to local need, they developed an inpatient psychiatric unit, partnered to offer home health care services and purchased a long term care facility. Their latest acquisition, a retail ...
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Four Ways to Make Your Conference Experience 'Stick'

By The SHSMD Team posted 09-30-2019
By Alan Shoebridge Continuous learning and professional development are crucial to career success. However, taking the time to learn in between emails, calls, meetings and countless other daily distractions is extremely challenging. Attending a conference in person removes you from many typical distractions and commitments and provides an ideal opportunity for learning. Your primary task is to be present and absorb information. So how can you make the most of what you learned and ensure it sticks with you after you return home? Here are four strategies I have used successfully and am currently working through after attending this year's ...
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Tweet-Sized Takeaways from SHSMD Connections

By The SHSMD Team posted 09-27-2019
While three Cs and three Ds look bad on a report card, they looked great at SHSMD Connections (another "C"). The three Cs that emerged from attendee reflections are consumerism, change and caring and the three Ds are disruption, digital and data. Add an "I" for innovation just for extra measure. All of these are interdependent factors. You can't have consumerism without caring, you can't respond to disruption without data and you can't face disruption unless you're ready not just for change but to change. And innovations is the theme that runs through them all. Here are some of the especially thought-provoking responses to our request for key takeaways ...
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Annual Conference Lessons: Gratitude, Kindness and Listening

By The SHSMD Team posted 09-20-2019
By Rose Glenn Following a conference, it's normal for my mind to race from all of the ideas generated and lessons learned. But this time, it was different. The messages of the keynote speakers at the SHSMD Connections Conference resonated with me in an unusual way. Rather than thinking about digital strategies and population health, I was reflecting on how often I express gratitude, whether or not I am regularly demonstrating kindness in my words and actions and if I'm truly listening when others talk. This was not your mother's conference! Shabnam Mogharabi of SoulPancake talked about the fact that people are craving positivity. We need to ...
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SHSMD Connections 2019 Conference Buzz

By The SHSMD Team posted 09-17-2019
SHSMD Connections 2019 featured inspirational keynotes and informative sessions on the latest trends in health care strategy, hospital and health system marketing, business development and communications. Keynote speakers included Shabnam Mogharabi, CEO and executive producer for media company SoulPancake, who offered insight on connecting with people through social and online messaging that celebrates personal and professional purpose; Jon Meacham, presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author; Sekou Andrews, creator of Poetic Voice; Zeev Neurwirth, M.D., senior medical director of population health for Atrium Health and Carla Moore, vice president ...
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Consumerism in Website Design: The Power of Stories and Emotional Connections in Driving Results

By The SHSMD Team posted 09-06-2019
Ramon Soto, Chief Marketing Officer at Northwell Health, was tasked with creating a new website that would lead to greater consumer recruitment and engagement. The first step was a year's worth of research and strategizing on consumer and patient needs. The New Site's Mission Statement After a year's worth of research and strategizing, the team identified the elements that would fulfill these needs. The new website, called The Well, included these features. Dear Doctor.  A new take on the classic and still successful advice column format. So You're...  Profiles of people undergoing procedures from a first-person point of view. A Day in the Life.  ...
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Experiential Marketing to Drive Engagement

By The SHSMD Team posted 08-30-2019
By Lewis Sanderow and Kara Coates How can a health care organization stand out from the thousands of marketing messages consumers encounter daily? OhioHealth, a 12-hospital health system in central Ohio, used experiential marketing – creating experiences that engage consumers – to accomplish exactly that. In 2018, OhioHealth opened seven freestanding emergency departments (EDs) throughout its service area. The system’s goal was to ensure that patients made the right choice among primary, urgent or emergency care when they needed medical attention. OhioHealth had to suit the medium to the messages and go beyond direct mail, open house events or other ...
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The Elusive Millennials

By The SHSMD Team posted 08-27-2019
Tapping Millennial Values to Drive Health Care Engagement By Julia Brady and Amy Ferguson Millennials are now the largest living generation. And according to Pew Research, among the most educated, the most diverse, and, perhaps surprisingly, the most loyal to their employers compared to previous generations. Wait a minute, isn't this the cohort referred to as the "me generation" in years past? Values as a path to engagement Well, yes, but let's take a different perspective. When viewed through the lens of core values, the focus on self is more likely rooted in a millennial's desire for authenticity. According to an article in Inc Magazine, ...
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