Alle-Kiski Medical Center planned to scale back its endocrinology and diabetes care services—until it began to analyze the strategic halo effects on its cardiovascular service line. To the surprise of leaders at the 258-bed hospitals, research proved that 35% of its cardio volume came from existing patients—and 14% came from endocrinology.
Alle-Kiski's story shows that it's crucial for marketers to apply strategic halo principles to determine what their feeder service lines are and how they can continue to drive those patients to seek more care at their organization.
Alle-Kiski's story shows that it's crucial for marketers to apply strategic halo principles to determine what their feeder service lines are and how they can continue to drive those patients to seek more care at their organization.
"Once you learn the method to track the service lines, it applies to a lot of other areas like marketing," William Englert, vice president of operations and business development for the Natrona Heights, PA, medical center said in the July issue of HealthLeaders magazine.
Alle-Kiski worked with SRK, Inc., a Chicago-based healthcare consulting firm, to identify the service lines that were driving patients to its cardiology department. In addition to endocrinology, it found that 6% of patients came from pulmonary, 6% came from gastroenterology, and 9% came from orthopedics.
Marketers should know how patients get to each major service line because "if we just look at the product line we're only going to understand that vertical experience," said Arthur Sturm, president and CEO of SRK, during its "Strategic Halos: Understanding How Product Lines Relate" webcast on Tuesday. "But if we take a full enterprise view we should be able to understand how an organization shares customers."
Once marketers know how patients arrive at a particular service line, they can better connect with those customers. Now Alle-Kiski clinicians ask diabetes patients if they've had their annual heart exam in order to drive patients to the cardio service line.
The patient experience at feeder service lines must also be exceptional.
"You have to think about what your business looks like going forward and how you can manage or increase that turn rate," said Brian Walker, senior vice president of strategy and client development at SRK, during the webcast. "This presents a great opportunity for a marketer to say, 'This represents some areas where I should be focusing my cross-selling initiatives and promotions.'"
Another benefit to researching the strategic halo is that it directly ties marketing efforts to patient volume and revenue. Provena Mercy Medical Center in Aurora, IL, recently analyzed its feeder service lines and, by creating targeted communications, generated 64 inpatient and outpatient visits, leading to $68,000 in revenue. A larger mailing garnered 780 inpatient or outpatient visits for $1.3 million in revenue.
The results of a strategic halo analysis can also give marketers a solid area of focus.
"One of the greatest challenges I hear from marketers is sometimes you have to be all things for all people," Walker said. "But by having more data like the strategic halo, it gives you the ability to focus on where you can have the greatest impact for volume and revenue. When you analyze the strategic effect the strategic halo has, it really changes everything."
Marianne Aiello is a contributing writer at HealthLeaders Media.