Massachusetts has the highest rate of residents with health insurance in the nation, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report that showed 92% of Bay Staters had health insurance when data from 2006 and 2007 were averaged. By comparison, barely three-quarters of residents had health coverage in Texas, the state that fared worst. The report emerges two years after Massachusetts became the first state to adopt a law requiring virtually all residents to have insurance.
Waterbury (CT) Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital are negotiating a possible merger as they seek better financial strength and efficiency. The hospitals are working toward an agreement in principle for the merger, which would need the approval of the state Office of Health Care Access. Representatives of the hospitals say both would remain open, though there would be some consolidation of services.
Alarmed by breaches in which UCLA Medical Center employees snooped in the confidential records of celebrities, California lawmakers moved to clamp hospital files shut with new oversight and stiffer penalties. The state Senate approved a measure that would require hospitals to draft a plan to safeguard patient information and set up a new state Office of Health Information Integrity with power to review plans and violations and assess fines of up to $250,000 against people who violate patient privacy. A companion bill would allow fines of up to $250,000 against healthcare providers in case of breaches.
After climbing steadily for six years, the number of Americans without health insurance dropped by more than a million in 2007, to 45.7 million, the Census Bureau has reported. The drop was largely because more people were covered through government programs. The number of uninsured, however, are higher today than they were at the outset of the Bush administration in 2001. That year, 39.8 million people, or 14.1%, were uninsured.
Medical mistakes at Indiana hospitals rose 24% percent last year, according to Indiana's second annual medical errors report. The State Department of Health said one reason for the surge was increased awareness among Indiana's hospitals and surgery centers to track and report their mistakes. The most common mistakes were cases where patients developed advanced bed sores from improper supervision or care during hospitalization, according to the report.
Telemonitoring and telehealth services are gaining a greater foothold in the increasingly costly healthcare market. The field has spurred a growing interest in home-health strategies that can help curb costs by minimizing office visits and hospitalization. Some say they also lead to better outcomes. "It's been very successful when it's done well in reducing the hospitalization of patients, because you can reach something early," Carol J. Bickford, a senior policy fellow in the department of nursing practice and policy at the American Nursing Association, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Kenny Hulshof has released a healthcare proposal he said could decrease costs and increase accessibility by allowing consumers in Missouri to shop for health insurance offered by private companies. The proposal is called HealthMAX, and would create a legal framework in which insurance providers could offer healthcare plans to a pool of individuals, families, and small businesses. Consumers could shop among the plans and buy the coverage that best fit their needs.
Unlike many recruitment campaigns that aim to fill a defined number of openings, Jefferson Regional Medical Center's (JRMC) nurse recruitment campaign focused on general outreach.
JRMC, located in Pittsburgh, decided to take an approach to the national nursing shortage problem that was different from all the other hospitals competing to fill positions. Using common nursing phrases, the JRMC ads invite nurses to breathe a sigh of relief—because they've finally found a facility that recognizes their needs.
"Basically what we wanted to do was come up with a recruitment plan that was fun, fresh, and something a little more non-traditional in terms of healthcare recruitment," says Renee Holtzman, manager of HR services for JRMC. "We wanted to brand our recruitment efforts and get recognition so [potential hires] could see the name and recognize it."
JRMC met with the Elisco Advertising team (also located in Pittsburgh) to identify key elements and to develop a full marketing communications plan. They started by asking why nurses would want to work for JRMC. Benefits included the facility's location, its plans for growth, and the fact that it's an independent community facility.
The team decided on a full-scale campaign that included print, billboards, and ads on the side of buses. The concepts behind the creative were simple imagery and clear, concise information on JRMC's benefits communicated in a way that played off of the types of things nurses might say in a given day. For example, the phrase "Say Ahhhhh," was used on the image of a tongue depressor. The copy below reads, "You've just found a better place to work."
"Basically we are presenting the programs and [attributes] we already have in place, but we are communicating them in a better and different way with this campaign," says Holtzman. "Elisco really took the things that nurses say on a daily basis to patients and turned them back on them, as a way to let them know that we, as an employer, would care for them as an employee and that they for once would be on the other receiving end of the care and attention. The ad copy presented us with the opportunity to give back to the nurses for being the caregivers they are."
Kandace McLaughlin is an editor with HealthLeaders magazine. Send her Campaign Spotlight ideas at kmclaughlin@healthleadersmedia.com If you are a marketer submitting a campaign on behalf of your facility or client, please ensure you have permission before doing so.
There are two demographics that healthcare marketers most pine for—two groups that have a huge impact on the financial health of healthcare organizations. The first is women, who have the biggest influence on their friends' and family members' healthcare choices and spread word of mouth (both positive and negative) like crazy. The second is the baby boomer generation, the largest and most lucrative healthcare market.
So what does that make women boomers? I'm not sure there's a superlative strong enough to describe their importance to healthcare marketers.
But healthcare marketers often misunderstand this important group, according to a recent study by BVK, a marketing communications firm in Milwaukee. The findings suggest that some of the conventional wisdom about women boomers is wrong. And—even worse—boomer women feel insulted when marketers act on these incorrect assumptions and misrepresent them in images or write copy that doesn't reflect their lifestyle and attitudes.
Here's an example of how marketers misunderstand boomer women. The statement I made at the beginning of this column—that women influence healthcare decisions and that they often spread their recommendations via word of mouth—is only half right, according to the study.
A full 72% of survey respondents said they either relied solely on independent information that they personally researched to drive their decision-making or turned to these information sources before they turned to others. Only 9% of women reported using stories and past experiences from family and friends and other associates as the principle driver of their decision-making, according to Joel English, BVK's executive vice president.
In other words, you can't rely solely on word of mouth to reach this audience. If you're not giving them the information they need—especially online—then you're not going to reach the demographic during that crucial evidence-gathering stage.
Another example of how marketers misunderstand older women—and how that misperception can sabotage marketing efforts: Marketers who haven't yet turned 50 might be looking toward that milestone with some trepidation. It's all downhill from there, right?
But women who have already turned 50 don't feel that way at all. A full 97% of survey respondents said that turning 50 is cause for celebration.
"There is a pervasive cultural attitude, which sometimes finds its way into marketing thinking, that age 50 is the tipping point from a fully-functional and enjoyable life to one of decreasing opportunity, functionality, and satisfaction," English writes in a chapter on marketing to women boomers in a forthcoming HealthLeaders Media book on niche marketing.
An ad showing an older woman lying in her hospital bed, looking frail and pale, with a kindly nurse patting her withered hand does much more harm than good. Women in this age group don't want to see themselves depicted as old and decrepit. In fact, they don't want to see themselves as sick at all, even if they are. Fear tactics just don't work on this group, English writes.
Here's the bottom line: Don't assume you know everything about any niche group.
Because you know what happens when you assume.
Want to learn more about what you don't know about boomers? Read five facts about them that might surprise you in this month's magazine [Boomer Truths, August, 2008].
Gienna Shaw is an editor with HealthLeaders magazine. She can be reached at gshaw@healthleadersmedia.com.
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The first year of the new $3.2 million maternity ward at Mitchell, SD-based Avera Queen of Peace Hospital brought more amenities for patients, but the hospital actually saw a drop in the number of babies born during the fiscal year that spanned 2007 and 2008. The reason is the retirement of a doctor who has yet to be replaced, said hospital officials.
