Lights, Camera, Healthcare!

Northwell Health looks for brand recognition -- and a platform to talk about the issues -- with Northwell Studios.

In a world inundated with entertainment and social media channels, health systems often struggle to be heard and seen above the noise.

Enter Northwell Studios.

New York’s largest health system has launched a production company that is developing scripted and unscripted media content, including documentaries and docudramas. The intent, says Ramon Soto, Northwell’s SVP and chief marketing and communications officer, isn’t to make money or discover the next George Clooney, but to market the brand and give the health system an avenue to produce issues-driven content.

“Northwell wants to just show up differently to consumers, and we compete in a hyper competitive market,” he says. “So when we show up, how do we get a consumer to take notice of Northwell and to choose us … particularly when you have great choices?”

Soto says the strategy encompasses two main goals.

“One, we can invite consumers in and see all the things that happen behind the glass that they never get exposure to,” he says. “And it’s wonderful content. There’s a reason why Grey’s Anatomy is super successful. You show the power of health and how it fuels your life, your love, your passions, your careers, [with] really deep human interest stories.”

“The second part is we found a lot of value in telling stories about socially important topics that society has to have more conversations around,” he adds. “And sadly, there are too many of these.”

The idea for Northwell Studios—and Soto is quick to point out this isn’t a movie studio out in Hollywood developing the next St. Elsewhere or ER—came when the health system was introduced to a pair of Israeli showrunners who had developed successful documentaries and docudramas in Europe and wanted to expand to the UK and US.

The two, Ruthie Shatz and Adi Barnash, signed a contract with Northwell in 2017 to create Lenox Hill, a nine-part documentary on Lenox Hill Hospital that appeared on Netflix in 2020. The success of that show led to Emergency NYC, an eight-part documentary that aired on Netflix in 2023.

A third documentary series, called One South: Portrait of a Psych Unit, is now airing on HBO and some streaming services. It focuses on a unique program developed by Northwell at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Queens for college students at risk of suicide, and follows a handful of those students through their treatment.

And that’s when Northwell leadership decided to become a more active participant in the process.

One South “has been very beneficial in that regard to the point where we said, ‘Look, let's turn this into a business and let's do more of these,’” Soto says. Northwell Studios, launched this year, aims to produce at least two pieces of content per year.

It also highlights what Northwell wants to do with that medium.

“The reality is Northwell has millions of square feet of footage with which we dispense clinical care,” he notes. “We've got 21 hospitals, we’ve got 88,000 employees, hundreds of operating rooms, thousands of doors that consumers can walk through to engage with us, and that is my stage. So that’s where we capture the content, and it can be incredibly compelling content just given the number of people we touch: 2 million unique patient visits a year, 6 million patient encounters.”

Developing Northwell-branded content is tricky, given that the health system doesn’t want the public to assume this is carefully cultivated to make Northwell look good. Soto says story ideas are reviewed by a third party who is neither a Northwell employee nor a member of the production crew to ensure that the content is both entertaining and accurate. Contracts are carefully and meticulously drafted to ensure HIPAA compliance and patient privacy and safety, and the health system has a limited impact on the editing process.   

Limited, but necessary. This is about more than just a stray Starbucks coffee cup showing up in Game of Thrones.

“It's fascinating to be in the edit room because I literally have a team of 20 people in there scrutinizing and you have typically a producer, director, maybe five people on the production side of it,” he says. “And we're not shy. Every once in a while you have the inadvertent camera scan across the room and a computer screen is up. And you know, our guys have heart attacks--not really, but we're just hyper-vigilant about that.”

And while Northwell’s doctors may be expert at treating patients and saving lives, that might not translate to the screen. Soto recalls a casting call for one production that drew 55 doctors for four roles—and having to deal with 51 doctors who didn’t make the cut.

“Picking doctors who know when the red light goes on” can be challenging, he says.

Soto noted that Northwell Studios won’t be making a profit for the health system—and that’s important, because Northwell Health is a non-profit entity. The value of this business venture, however, is significant. It’s far better than any billboard, TV ad or newspaper or magazine insert.

“This is about content creation that can do social good, that can benefit the communities that we serve and that allows us to develop brand [recognition],” he says, noting that 1% of all babies born in the U.S. are in Northwell facilities. “We really are intimate partners with consumers along their lives.”

It’s important, Soto says, to not only shine the light on healthcare’s heroes, but to direct that spotlight on important public health and population health issues, such as the high suicide rate among teens and young adults.

‘We lose $100 million a year on behavioral health services,” he says, “yet we created a two-episode docudrama on it because it’s an important social conversation right now.”