System Formerly Known As . . .

Lakeside Community Healthcare, formerly known as Lakeside Systems, Inc. (among other titles held by its variety of medical groups and urgent care centers), recently underwent significant growth due to a combination of expansion and acquisitions.

"A lot of our growth was focused on meeting the needs of the community," says Bonnie Goodman, consultant for Lakeside Community Healthcare, located in Glendale, CA. "With so many arms of the company, and with different needs [for each segment of the company], we knew we needed to integrate and unify things under one umbrella so patients would really understand the depth of the organization."

Needing to find one central concept to bring unity and a brand image to the company, Lakeside went through a process, with complete buy-in and assistance from a team of senior management, of researching what was important in today's market for its patients and the community.

It was decided across the board that each stand-alone part of the organization would incorporate the name "Lakeside Community Healthcare" into its title—bringing a unifying factor throughout. A brand logo was also created incorporating the new name along with a specific and all-encompassing tagline: "Specializing in You."

"The outcome [from the research] showed us we needed to focus on compassion and respect, not just quality," says Goodman. "It really showed us how important relationships were and how important it was to the community and patients to be patient centric. We decided to focus our brand image and message on a commitment to a humanistic way of care."

With the new brand image, logo, and central message set, a campaign including Web and print exposure has been launched within the community. "So far we're in phase one with the campaign which is really about awareness as opposed to hardcore measurement," says Goodman. "Measurement will of course come over time, but what's important now is name recognition."