Service Line Campaign Positioning Pays Off for MGUH

Positioning is the single most important aspect of hospital communications. Hospital leadership must have a clear view of brand position to accurately portray their organizations to the public and differentiate themselves from competitors.

With a well-defined brand position in place, effective marketing campaigns can be created, and they may eventually develop sub-positions of their own.

A case in point is MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, an academic medical center located in Washington D.C. MGUH has used a well-developed dual positioning strategy to its advantage in a campaign promoting its deep brain stimulation treatment.

Position 1:
The leader in treating movement disorders
MGUH primarily created the campaign because it wanted to continue to position itself as the leader in treating and caring for patients with movement disorders.

"We are a National Parkinson's Foundation Center of Excellence and we are a high volume Deep Brain Stimulation center. These are important differentiators for us," says Karen Alcorn, vice president of public affairs and marketing for MGUH and vice president of MedStar Health, Washington Region.

"We also found that Parkinson's patients often self refer, so we wanted to create an awareness campaign that talked about the benefits of DBS and its impact on quality of life."