In 2008, it will be about the economy and politics. Growth is slowing, fuel prices are high and credit is tight. That's a difficult mix for marketers to face as consumers will continue to pull in the reins as disposable income tightens dramatically.
If your resolution is to be fully staffed in the New Year, look to Saint Francis Medical Center's newly-launched recruitment campaign for inspiration. Facing a growing regional healthcare employee shortage, Saint Francis, in Cape Girardeau, MO, needed to fill 26 nursing positions immediately and hoped to hire as many as 100 new nurses each year going forward.
Working with The Roberts Group in Waukesha, WI, Saint Francis developed a multimedia recruitment campaign. An internal employee referral program combined with a mix of print, TV, outdoor, online, and a DVD were used to drive the audience to a new micro site (YourNursingFuture.com) where users can watch streaming video featuring real St. Francis nurses, request more information, apply online, and forward the link to friends. The hospital also plans to add a blog.
The results of the campaign should alleviate doubts about the effectiveness of online campaigns. After the first week, the hospital received more than 250 employee referrals. After four weeks, the number jumped to 750. After three months, Saint Francis filled 16 of 26 nursing vacancies. The average visitor was spending almost four minutes on their site--five times longer than the national average for other Web site users.
Two doctors are planning on opening urgent care clinics in Fort Worth and Arlington, TX. The clinics are targeting patients with minor injuries, infections, and other ailments that often prompt visits to hospital emergency rooms.
During an 18-month pilot project, nine California hospitals were able to prevent an estimated 600 healthcare-associated infections by using a data-mining program to comb through computerized records and flagging infections to thwart their spread.
Under legislation that California Sen. Elaine Alquist plans to introduce, the state would have one of the most sweeping laws in the nation for tracking "superbugs" in hospitals and other settings. The bill would require hospitals and nursing homes to make public their infection rates.
Access to the prescription writing habits of physicians is becoming a new battleground. For example, every state in New England has a prescription transparency issue in dispute. A new law was to take effect in Maine on Jan. 1 making the prescription writing habits of physicians confidential under state law.