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Rush University Medical Center Lets Its Doctors Do The Talking

 |  By Marianne@example.com  
   September 08, 2010

Last month I wrote about how ABC reality series Boston Med enhanced the reputations of three Massachusetts hospitals by allowing physicians to speak off the cuff. But if your organization doesn't have a reality show in its future, you can still garner similar publicity by allowing your doctors' and staff's personality to shine through your advertising. Rush University Medical Center did just that with its "Rush Stories" campaign.

The 676-bed hospital began featuring physicians in its advertising in 2003, after determining a gap in the market.

"Our physicians and nurses and other clinicians are focused on what's best for patients," said Lori Allen associate vice president for marketing and communications at Rush, in the August issue of Healthcare Marketing Advisor. "It sounds like something anybody could say, but I've worked at other places and it feels different here. Our physicians feel more approachable and we want to express that in our marketing. So when we're defining our brand, we knew that we wanted that to come across in all of our marketing and there was no way better to do that than put them out there as themselves."

Working with La Grange, IL, marketing communications firm SPM, Rush decided it needed to have a stronger voice in the marketplace to make itself stand out from the four other academic medical centers in Chicago. After speaking with physicians, Rush marketers and the SPM team determined there was something unique about the group.

"Every hospital as a unique personality and what struck us about these Rush doctors is as a group they were uniquely warm and caring individuals, who just happened to be brilliant researchers and clinicians," said Gary Storandt, CEO of SPM. "With that personality we really wanted to bring that to the forefront."

Initially, the physician-focused ads honed in on the doctors' personalities and specialties, but for the past few years the campaign has transformed into a platform to tell specific patient stories. To do this, Rush marketers ask groups of physicians and nurses to recommend patients that stick out in their mind.

"We hear all these ideas from them about and we'll narrow it down to a list of semi-finalists and then we bring our agency in and gather the team that took care of that patient," Allen says. "Then we'll get a group of people together and have them tell us about the story and we'll wind up with two-to-four spots. They not only tell us the story but they also help us with what was special about that and what if the patient had gone elsewhere or what if the patient hadn't ever looked into this."

The longer video clips are featured on a campaign microsite, rushstories.org, where visitors can watch in-depth patient stories featuring neurosciences, orthopedics, cardiology, obstetrics, transplant, and oncology service lines. Each story is show in three parts, which really allows the physician and other staff member's to express their personalities.

"The benefit to featuring physicians is that their character couldn't help but shine though," Storandt says. "They're compassion and their zeal showed as they talked about the stories."

Testing has proven the "Rush Stories" campaign to be the most recognizable campaign in Chicago. The campaign has also resulted in patient admission, self referrals to specialists, call center volume, and website visits to increase across the board, Storandt says.

"Our brand is completely reality—it's not at all contrived and it's very distinctive," Allen says. "Our ads look like nobody else's and we're in a really competitive marketing."

Marianne Aiello is a contributing writer at HealthLeaders Media.

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