Viewpoint: Strategies for Success

Go Beyond Celebration: Make Black History Month Meaningful Black History Month is a powerful opportunity to deepen understanding, build bridges, and ignite action. This Black History Month, let's move past token gestures and create lasting impact. Invest in learning, support Black voices, and take action together. This isn't just about a month, it's about building a more equitable future, one step at a time. Here are 5 ways to engage your team in a journey beyond celebration: 1. Invest in Growth: Commit to personal and professional DEI development. Enroll in a DEI training together as a team to expand your knowledge and empathy. 2. Support & ...
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Written by: Melissa Fors Shackelford; Managing Director, Evernorth In health care marketing, a commitment to inclusivity and accessibility is essential. By embracing accessible and inclusive marketing tactics, health care marketers acknowledge and show respect for the diversity within their patient base. Beyond regulatory compliance, building brand reputation and brand loyalty, one of the main benefits of accessible health care marketing is expanding your potential audience. Nearly 25% of the population is living with a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and would be missed if health care marketing ...
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America’s employers will evaluate their health plans, partnerships and vendors more closely this year as they try to create value, achieve higher quality and procure cost-effective services. This will extend to high-focus areas like mental health, the rising costs of cancer care and drug prices, notes the 2024 Large Employer Health Care Strategy Survey from the Business Group on Health. 1 | Mental Health Challenges Rise Overall, 77% of employers reported an increase in mental health concerns, compared with 44% of last year’s respondents; another 16% in the 2024 survey said that they anticipate mental health challenges becoming a bigger concern in ...
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As health care continues to transform this year, executives will face challenges related to finances, technology, workforce and other areas. Across the field, thought leaders have been busy offering their best guesses, insights and predictions for how this year is likely to shake out. Here is what caught our attention. 1 | Align your digital health strategy as legacy systems are sunset. Many health care organizations are at the midpoint of their digital transformation and most leaders expect that the continued adoption of digital tools will impact their 2024 strategy, notes a recent Deloitte survey of providers and payers . Organizations should focus ...
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Clinical and nonclinical staffing remains a top concern for health care leaders. To grow and retain their workforce, hospitals and health systems need to pursue a multipronged approach, notes the AHA’s recently released 2024 Health Care Workforce Scan . This should encompass: Recruiting innovatively for clinical and nonclinical positions. Improving training and supporting practice readiness. Expanding career pathways. Building workforce diversity. Here are some of the innovative ways AHA members are executing a broad spectrum of strategies. 1 | Partner Productively Baltimore County, University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center ...
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As this year draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on the incredible journey we have shared as SHSMD members. It has been my privilege to serve as advisory board president during 2023, and I’m so excited about SHSMD’s future. This last year has been one of remarkable achievements and unwavering commitment to empowering professionals like you who drive the success of health care organizations and solution providers. SHSMD provides a platform for members to learn, connect, and grow professionally, all while facing the significant issues that continue to challenge health care. Why does membership matter? SHSMD remains ...
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Hospitals and health systems are reexamining and redesigning clinical care delivery and staffing strategies. This primarily is a response to the nation’s rapidly changing demographics and the large numbers of clinicians leaving the field due to retirement or other factors. And even though it’s still early in this transformation, many provider organizations are making impressive gains, notes the AHA’s recently released 2024 Health Care Workforce Scan . The report provides a wealth of examples of how provider organizations are piloting new care models and leveraging existing and emerging digital technologies to augment, support and streamline workforce roles. ...
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Written by: Sharon Carothers , Managing Director, SensisHealth The health care insurance industry is preparing for open enrollment (OE) in the fall. Insurers are plotting their approach for effective use of consumer advertising to drive OE success . There are three unique and challenging characteristics of OE advertising for insurers: specific, short time period (October – December) marketplace is cluttered with advertisers enrollment is a complicated, multistep process The following are some OE advertising best practices using these ...
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Written by Katie Sorce, Marketing & Content Strategist, Smith & Jones  2024 is almost here . Accelerated by the pandemic, the health care field is seeing profound transformation and change that won’t slow down. At the forefront of these changes is the surge in patient empowerment, consumerism, and the disruption from retail health providers.  #1 The Acceleration of Patient Empowerment and Consumerism In the past, the health care system was characterized by a hierarchical structure, with the revered physicians at the apex and patients taking a passive role in their care. But thanks to the internet, consumers ...
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Written by: Andy Semons , Founder, Strategic Planning Partner, IPNY The emphasis on Diversity , Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has been long overdue for health care marketers, and as we come to terms with how to broaden our appeal to the people in our communities and be more inclusive, we’ r e realizing that it’s not an easy task . W e’re also learning more about bias and the need to work with it – both the biases that our targets may have against certain health care issues or institutions and the biases we may have that guide how we think or feel about the populations we serve. In recent years, ...
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As hospitals and health system executives refine strategies to improve recruitment and retention of nurses, particularly nurse leaders, nonsalary forms of compensation may need closer scrutiny. Most strategies tend to focus on role, scope, span of control, empowerment, recognition and professional development, notes the AHA’s American Organization for Nursing Leadership’s (AONL’s) Nursing Leadership Workforce Compendium . While all are important, the evaluation of clinical practices explains that these strategies have limited impact if they do not address underlying market competitive compensation and rewards. The Benefits Nurse Leaders Value Most ...
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Written by: Deanna Martin ; V ice P resident , P rofessional M embership G roups , American Hospital Association. The Society for Health Care Strategy & Market Development will host the   SHSMD23 Connections Conference  Sept. 10 – 12 in Chicago . This annual gathering of hospital and health system professionals from marketing/digital engagement, communications/public relations, strategic planning and/or business development delivers three days of actionable content, networking and collaboration with the nation’s top health care strategists. Attendees can exchange transformative marcom strategies and future-focused ...
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Written by: Marion Kelly ; D irector of the Office for Community Engagement ; Mayo Clinic Hospital , Arizona. Ten years ago, the Affordable Care Act mandated triannual community health needs assessments to document how hospitals are meeting the health needs in their communities. The Mayo Clinic Hospital in Arizona, where I serve as director of the Office for Community Engagement, is a tertiary referral care hospital. Community hospitals that have patients who have complex health needs and who need specialty care send those patients to us. Though our patients come from across the state and across the U.S. — and even around ...
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With all of the information available surrounding health and health care, how do you know what’s accurate and what’s not? The infamous “Dr. Google” leads many individuals down a seemingly inescapable rabbit hole. It’s important to know how to seek out reliable sources, so you don’t panic when panic is undeserved. Kathy Wilets , Senior Director of Media Relations and Content Marketing, and Paul Gadd, Director of Internal Communications, both from the University of Utah Health , share helpful insights for anyone who is wrestling with the over-abundance of information at our fingertips. Truth: Straight from Physicians’ ...
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Written by: Sharon Carothers; Managing Director; Sensis Health Medical research and clinical trials lack African, Asian, and Hispanic American participants, as well as participants who are 50 years old or older. This makes it harder to determine if discoveries will be effective among these unrepresented populations. Recruiting these groups is notoriously complex, and, unfortunately, many investigators, contract research organizations, and drug and device makers still fail to do so effectively. As a multicultural health care communications expert, Sensis set out to answer: What would encourage underrepresented audiences to participate in medical research ...
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Written by: Melissa Fors Shackelford; Vice President, Marketing Strategy, Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Health equity is the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health. Achieving this requires ongoing societal efforts to: Address historical and contemporary injustices; Overcome economic, social, and other obstacles to health and health care; Eliminate preventable health disparities. As health care marketers we know that we play a critical role in health equity . Often times we focus on inclusivity and accessibility in our marketing, such as ...
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Written by: Communication Strategist; Ashley Sides Johnson; Ten Adams During budget season, wouldn’t it be nice if you could wave a magic wand and gain access to infinite staff and resources? When you’re faced with the daunting task of doing more with less as a health care marketer, it’s easy to get discouraged. But what if you flipped your focus? As you tackle the challenge of optimizing your health system marketing budget, see it as a chance to flex your strategy skills. 4 Strategies to Maximize Your Health Care Marketing Budget: Prioritize initiatives that support your health system’s strategic goals Identify health care ...
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Digital health strategy has taken on greater importance as providers work to meet rising consumer expectations. Yet even after the many digital front-door improvements health care organizations made during the pandemic to make it easier for consumers to access and schedule care, it appears more work needs to be done. That’s a key finding from a recent Experian Health survey of more than 1,200 providers and consumers. Identifying Opportunities for Improvement Only 17% of patients and 27% of providers say the experience of accessing health care digitally is better today. Most respondents on both sides say the experience is about the same or worse over ...
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Written by:  Alan Shoebridge  - AVP, National Communication at Providence and SHSMD President   Each July we face an uncomfortable truth. Summer has arrived and t he current year is more than half over! Time flies when you’re having fun – or something like that. The last three years have been incredibly challenging for those working in health care . COVID disrupted health care in so many ways, and returning to how things were in 2019 seems impossible. That’s certainly true for frontline care providers. It’s also the reality for all of us. An ...
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Written by: Martin Szczuczynski, Senior Manager, Strategic Planning, AdventHealth SHSMD kicked off its first Member Meet-up of the year in April with Dan Miers, Chief Strategy Officer, of SPM Group, Martin Szczuczynski, Senior Manager, Strategic Planning, of AdventHealth, and Pat Barry, VP of Data and Analytics, of SPM Group facilitating the discussion. This opportunity is designed to promote peer-to-peer learning and enable conversation among members to address challenges they are facing. Members expressed a keen interest in performance analytics and 45 SHSMD members from across the country participated in the conversation. In this post, we will recap ...
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