Hospital Marketing Journal

Why Culture Matters to Patient Experience

On Friday, September 16th, 2011, from 3:30pm to 4:45pm, Ten Adams will present an exciting and informative seminar, Why Culture Matters to Patient Experience, at Connections 2011, the annual conference and exhibits of the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD). The seminar is part of the Leadership/Development track and examines the importance of workplace culture in delivering an optimal patient experience. Hospitals are facing serious challenges today. According to the American Hospital Association, the total number of hospitals declined from 7,156 in 1975 to 5,795 in 2009 due in large part to financial pressures from decreasing reimbursements and increasing operating costs, forcing them to merge into larger hospitals to benefit from economies of scale and decreased competition. Healthstream Research (HSR), one of the healthcare industry’s foremost research resources, recently reported that in order to overcome financial challenges today, hospitals need to focus on employee satisfaction and retention and the employee’s role in providing high-quality patient care. The HSR study concluded that without employee engagement, there can be no patient engagement. The Ten Adams presentation explores employee engagement and its relationship to hospital culture and patient satisfaction. The presentation points out that improving employee engagement is vital to establishing a new mindset in healthcare organizations and developing a culture that promotes care, safety, service and value for the patient and their families. Ten Adams will share with the audience a real life example of a hospital that needed a significant transformation in multiple areas of organizational performance and how Ten Adams was able to help them. Participants will be educated on the difference between marketing and branding and how an organization’s culture becomes the brand promise. The session closes by providing practical and useful insights into what hospital leaders need to do to energize or transform workplace culture. The two presenters for this seminar are Scott Mosley, VP Strategy for Ten Adams and a seasoned health care marketing professional with more than 25 years of experience in the profession and Jon Headlee, President of Ten Adams since 1992 and an expert in hospital strategic marketing, branding and consulting. The SHSMD conference is being held this year in Phoenix, Arizona, September 14th through the 17th, at The J.W. Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and is entitled, Exploring New Horizons. SHSMD is celebrating its 15th Anniversary with special sessions, events, and surprises. This year, participants will be able to get up to date information on the latest trends, issues, and best practices in healthcare strategy, take away new ideas and skills that will pay off back at the office, network with colleagues from around the country and find the latest marketplace solutions in SHSMD’s Exhibit Hall. (SHSMD) If you are attending SHSMD this year, please visit Ten Adams’ Booth #100 to learn more about us and talk in person to Jon, Scott and other Ten Adams personnel.

QR Codes Gaining Popularity

by Nancy Daugherty

Information at the click of a mouse, in the palm of your hand—and now by the scan of a code? That’s right. QR codes, short for quick response codes, are those small barcode look-a-like things that you may have seen in the corner of advertisements, magazines, or billboards that literally connect you to information when scanned. These two-dimensional codes are more than just funny looking black and white squares. When scanned by a smartphone’s QR reader, the code directs you to a landing page where you can view videos, promotional content, or other information. While QR codes are just beginning to gain popularity in the U.S., they have actually been around since the 1990’s. Created in Japan by Toyota in 1994, QR codes were originally used to track automotive parts as they were distributed to various manufacturers across the world. Now, they have become mobile-friendly ways to instantly connect people to online resources. Fast-food restaurants place them on food and beverage containers to connect consumers to their product’s nutritional information. It’s a tool that businesses use to engage consumers with their brand by placing them on business cards or brochures to drive traffic to their website, social media platforms, and to coupons or discount codes. Hospitals are also using QR codes in many ways: on their hospital directories to give people directions to various locations, introduce new services or facilities, and promote teen health education.  QR codes are emerging on print campaigns to promote new physicians directing viewers to a YouTube interview with that physician or to promote a service line with a patient video testimonial. Caution must be used; however, because thought and creativity are essential when including a QR code in promotions. It's work to scan a barcode, so users have higher expectations as to what content they will find. If you think QR codes are just a fad, consider this; now you no longer have to find the nearest computer, or spend time Google searching on your phone to access information because QR codes allow you to be directly connected no matter where you are, and with the rising number of smartphone users, QR code usage rates have steadily increased. Businesses, organizations, and marketers are also seeing the value because they can track user engagement by seeing the number of people who scanned their code, how much time they spent on their site, and what they are doing on their site. That data can be analyzed and used to make decisions about future marketing campaigns. In today’s world that relies heavily on hand held devices to access information, QR codes are definitely something to look out for. Have you utilized QR Codes for your organization?  Have you ever scanned a QR Code?

Brand Leadership

by Scott Mosley

There is a new proposition in healthcare. Healthcare today is far more encompassing than it’s ever been before, touching virtually every aspect of how we equip ourselves to live our lives – physically, mentally and spiritually – in an increasingly difficult world. Healthcare is no longer confined within the walls of your hospital, your ambulatory care centers or the offices of the physicians you employ. It’s more a product of the thousands of individual choices we, as individuals, make every day. As a result, how consumers view healthcare and their expectations of providers is changing significantly. Your organization – and your brand – are judged on the basis of your value to consumers in very broad terms – the extent to which you integrate with their lives, anticipating and proactively addressing needs based on information they have provided. Consumer perceptions of healthcare providers – and the relative value assigned to their brands – are a function of at least five key factors. The first is access. In this age of electronic connectivity it’s essential that we consider the new standards of access – to personalized health information, to professional services and to the support of individuals dedicated to personal lifestyle enhancement. The next is accountability. With the advent of patient-centered medical homes and accountable care organizations, consumers will come to expect a new level of responsibility for the outcomes associated with the healthcare experience – responsibility that starts with their principal healthcare provider. And, they will expect that principal provider to seamlessly integrate a full spectrum of healthcare services and the ability to deliver them in an integrated manner, absent the frustrations of fragmentation which have long plagued our healthcare system. Finally, consumer perceptions will increasingly be influenced by the expertise exhibited by their principal healthcare organization. And, by expertise we’re not only referring to the knowledge possessed by any single provider, but the collective knowledge that comes from the sharing of information and a highly collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to care coordination. These are the new standards and expectations against which your organization’s brand will be assessed and value assigned, rooted in emotionally-based judgments of your organization’s ability to stand as a good “life partner” for an individual and their family. Today’s brand leader carries a heavier burden of responsibility. Brand leadership is a very personal endeavor which demands more of those who accept the role and embrace its challenges and opportunities. In what ways do you see the elevated role of brand leadership emerging?

Effectiveness of Emotional Hospital Advertising

by Kris Laufer

When your hospital has only a 30-second television commercial to position itself, what angle should you go for?  Do you use that half minute to discuss how caring and compassionate your nursing staff is, or do you go into great detail about the technological advances you’ve recently made? Should you discuss how your employees strive to deliver a personal touch, or do you highlight the state-of-the-art surgical equipment installed last month? You go with the message that allows you to show emotion.  Emotional marketing resonates. It is remembered.  Individuals are more likely to connect to emotions than advanced technology. That’s just human nature. Patients want a hospital that gets them – that will be empathetic to their situation and strive to make them as comfortable as possible – and part of that comfort comes from an emotional bond. Your audience will not remember sterile equipment or physicians in stark white lab coats.  It is going to walk away remembering emotions. I am not suggesting that we do away with all tech-heavy campaigns.  Advertisements that highlight cutting-edge technology or top-notch physicians play an important role in the marketing world, too.  Once a hospital has positioned itself as thoughtful and empathetic, it would be prudent to highlight some of the technological features that make it unique. But the reality is, technological ads cannot stand on their own effectively.  They need the emotional support to garner the desired impact. For additional insight on emotional advertising, click here to view the HealthLeaders Media article, “Emotional Advertising is Still Most Effective” http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/page-2/MAR-250897/Emotional-Advertising-is-Still-Most-Effective

The Value of Teamwork in Nursing—Part 2

 

In the last blog we introduced a hospital client who, despite a dedicated and hard-working nursing staff, was experiencing below-average patient satisfaction scores.  The solution?  Using an outside resource as the impetus for better communication and fresh, homegrown innovation. Using the hospital’s orthopedic unit as a test case, Ten Adams gathered a group of the unit’s key nursing leaders to discuss the problem.  Over six planning sessions, a new implementation of the unit’s rounding program was developed.  Each “rounder” would go to each patient’s room in her assigned section and cover five topics: Positioning—“Are you comfortable?” Personal Needs—“Do you need to use the restroom?” Pain—“What is your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10?” Placement—“Is everything within your reach: water, phone, tissues, TV remote?” Finally, a promise that “I will return in one hour to check on you.” The “rounder” would then call in the patient’s needs to the nursing unit desk where a “runner” was assigned to that need. Once the plan was finalized, the nurses looked at each other and realized what they had accomplished together.  The message was uniform and concise for the patient.   The result?  Less chaos on the floor…an intercom system that was virtually quiet…and call light averages that dropped from 25 to 30 per hour to less than seven on the first shift and less than five on the night shift.  Best of all, patient satisfaction scores exceeded minimums in two categories and missed the third by just under one percent. Together, these nurses are making a difference by combining what they know best—patient care—with open and honest communication, facilitated by a fresh set of eyes. In the end, by working together to uncover new paths to excellence, they were able to offer the patient care and support for which they were so highly trained.