Want to take your performance to that ideal level of highly effective and efficient marketing? It takes better access to detailed data and ROI discipline, but it also comes along with greater growth and better levels of budgets, according to the recently released Lenskold Group/Kneebone 2008 Marketing ROI and Measurements Study.
Business author and speaker Harvey Mackay outlines 12 secrets to sales success. Mackay says knowing something about your customer is just as important as knowing everything about your product, and that your reputation is your greatest asset. He also suggests positioning yourself as a consultant, a principle that more and more healthcare marketers are starting to embrace.
I hear it all the time from healthcare marketers and experts alike: hospitals and health systems should look to other industries for marketing and advertising ideas. After all, this tactic has worked in other areas of healthcare. Patient safety and quality have both been improved thanks to best practices borrowed from outside the healthcare field, for example. But will that innovation ever find its way into the marketing department? Or are healthcare marketers too entrenched in the "this-is-the-way-we've-always-done-it mentality"?
Here's the problem. The way it's always been done is not very well.
Really, how long will hospitals run ads with pictures of a team of doctors in white coats with their arms crossed or a nurse at a patient's bedside offering a comforting touch and a friendly smile or pictures of medical devices and buildings?
OK, so it's no secret that healthcare is a little behind the curve when it comes to marketing. And that's why some savvy healthcare marketers are looking beyond their own departments and hallways for inspiration, advice, and a new way to do things.
And there are lots of things that healthcare marketers can learn from other industries, especially in areas in which healthcare marketing is—let's face it—weak. From product development to how best to use new media to creating a brand that engages consumers to measuring return on investment (the latter being the weakest of all weak spots, for sure), why not turn to others for a little help?
So, who should you turn to?
In this month's issue of HealthLeaders magazine, I wrote about some of the lessons healthcare marketers can find in the business models of companies in other industries, such as pharmaceutical, finance, travel, and hospitality.
The people I interviewed for this article said you have to go beyond the obvious. Yes, hotels have valet parking and yummy room service choices. But there's more to it than that.
"Our patients don't understand why they can stay at the Marriott and have an accurate bill under their door the morning they leave the hotel, yet the hospital sends an inaccurate bill months after they are discharged," Lynne Cunningham, principal of Cunningham Associates, a healthcare consulting firm in Sacramento, CA, told me. "Patients don't understand why we have asked for the same information upon registration—every time—even if they are being seen on a regular basis."
So, what else can you do to learn from other industries? A few suggestions:
Get on mailing lists. Every time you order from a catalogue or drop your business card in a fishbowl at a conference, you'll increase the number of direct mail pieces that land on your desktop. More clutter, yes. But also more inspiration from a variety of industries upon which to draw. Don't forget that even industries that have nothing to do with healthcare are, in a way, your competitor—those direct mail pieces are competing for the time and attention of your audience.
Sign up for e-newsletters. Want to figure out what kind of online ads work? Well then, you have to look at a bunch of online ads. Sign up for marketing and advertising e-newsletters, of course. But if you have other hobbies—such as cooking, photography, personal finance, or the latest best-sellers—believe me, there is an e-newsletter (or five) for you. Even if you're not interested in the content, you can always open the e-mail and take a peek at what ads are inside.
Build your collection. Invite your colleagues from across the hospital to join your new recycling program—by dropping all the direct mail they get into your mailbox. Your physicians are getting direct mail from pharma, medical device companies, sporting goods companies, travel companies, credit card companies and a host of others. Nurses and staffers, too. If you want to know how to reach your internal audience, study marketing that targets them.
Step outside for a minute. Check out that crafts fair under way down the street from your hospital or pop by that art gallery opening after work. Breathe in the atmosphere, spy on the organizers to see how they're greeting and interacting with attendees, see what kind of food they're serving, and look for the posters and postcards they used to promote the current event as well as upcoming ones. You might get some ideas to liven up your next health screening or make your next employee appreciation event a little more fun.
You have to break out of the marketplace clutter. You must differentiate your organization from the rest. The best way to look different than everybody else might just be to look in a different direction from everybody else.
Gienna Shaw is an editor with HealthLeaders magazine. She can be reached at gshaw@healthleadersmedia.com.
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The strategic and economic rationale to maintain a strong relationship with female patients is well documented. Now healthcare organizations are renewing their focus in this area, developing new women's hospitals and expanding existing facilities.
Beyond full-service obstetric programs, personalized care in private rooms, and strong branding, cutting-edge women's hospitals have a number of common characteristics, such as a core physician leadership that focuses on programs such as urinary incontinence, gastrointestinal disorders, and minimally-invasive surgery.
To be a "player," you must replicate these characteristics—although it's not enough to distinguish your women's program in an increasingly competitive market.
Achieving a strong market position and annual net revenue or income growth of at least 7–10% requires clinical and operational innovation and an emphasis on customer service.
The following ten characteristics are fundamental to accomplishing that end:
1. Penetrate previously untapped or underserved patient pools by implementing clinical services unique to the market. Highly successful women's hospitals focus resources on implementing clinical services that will "drive" significant inpatient and outpatient profitability. In general, they are early adopters of new clinical technology and practices. For example, one women's hospital has a strategy to be one of the first to combine genetic testing and counseling for multiple diseases rather than just antepartum care. Another women's hospital has implemented cryopreservation of eggs for career women who desire a delayed start of families and patients requiring cancer treatment who wish to retain reproductive capability. A third women's hospital is providing intrauterine fetal surgery. Although wellness, education, retail, and other non-clinical services supplement core services, they're not sufficient to enable a women's hospital to achieve sustainable market leadership and generally do not have large net revenue or income potential.
2. Adopt a regional and potentially a national market penetration strategy by creating recognition for clinical expertise. Recruiting a physician or physicians who are regionally or nationally renowned for a particular service can bring both an established patient referral network and develop new relationships based on his/her clinical skills and entrepreneurial track record. Examples drawn from leading edge women's hospitals include attracting physicians with national reputations in minimally-invasive reproductive surgery, genetics, and urogynecology. In addition, strong women's hospitals also identify established members of the medical staff and work with them to build regional/national reputations and referral networks.
3. Provide superior service to primary care physicians (PCPs) in outlying target markets, encouraging them to shift referrals to your women's hospital. Achieving this end requires effective, ongoing interaction with the targeted physicians to understand and respond to the issues of greatest importance. Adequate capacity must be provided to treat their patient. On-line scheduling, utilizing electronic linkages (CPOE, PACS, and EMR) to achieve timely sharing of patient progress information should be offered. Clinical advancements should be ongoing, and patients should also be referred back to their PCP for continuing care. No amount of clinical innovation and architectural enhancement can substitute for these fundamental requirements.
4. Enhance operations to make the women's hospital unique in its ability to meet the needs of your medical staff. Leading-edge organizations stretch beyond the basics of regular investment in upgrading clinical tools and equipment and maximizing the clinical and interpersonal skills of the nursing and other staff. They devote resources to anticipating and resolving operational issues before they become bottlenecks. They aggregate and, where this is not feasible, virtually link interdependent clinical services are. They take proactive steps to maximize the cross-referral of patients between specialties/departments. And they employ a dedicated director of budget and business development.
5. Establish strong physician leadership. Commonly, physicians play an active role in setting the vision and direction of the women's hospital on a clinical and a strategic basis. Physicians frequently play a role within the senior management team. Some women's hospitals that are components of a larger hospital campus appoint a physician as chief administrative officer. Others involve physicians in management through medical directorships and medical advisory panels. At the same time, those individuals are held accountable for the performance of the women's hospital (financial, clinical quality, patient satisfaction, etc.) through pay-for-performance initiatives.
6. Make the facility unique in its ability to meet the needs of women in the market. Most significant to achieving this end is establishing an operational environment in which the diagnostic, therapeutic and related educational and psychosocial support services are more convenient than those available through competing providers. As an example, one women's hospital has established a single point of "entry" to health services for women. Patients are able to call one number or go to one site and schedule visits and procedures with physicians and multiple hospital departments. They receive the assistance of a care navigator in working through the process.
7. Develop relationships with niche patient pool segments. One of the best opportunities to achieve growth is to create relationships with patients in previously untargeted niche groups that are attractive from a payer mix standpoint. Several women's hospitals have developed culturally sensitive clinical programs specifically oriented to the Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Asian-American communities. Similarly, other women's hospitals have designed clinical programs to age-specific niches such as adolescent medicine; women athletes; and other groups.
8. Establish an environment that enables the organization to become an innovation center in women's health. Form strategic partnerships with other organizations. Physicians and researchers who are clinical entrepreneurs frequently find the patent rights and other economic restrictions of universities and some corporations too restrictive and are willing to move to more favorable environments. This presents an opportunity for a women's hospital to act as a catalyst in establishing an independent, freestanding facility that is one part collaborative "think tank," one part applied laboratory and one part funding mechanism. Several benefits may be derived. First, the innovation center may be used to draw to the hospital leading-edge physicians that can lend their clinical reputation and "star power" to the women's hospital by practicing at the facility. They can contribute their own clinical advancements to the continued evolution of medicine delivered at and thus differentiation of the hospital. They may also draw pharmaceutical, biotech and information technology companies eager to use the facility as their beta site for advancements in care specific to women.
9. Maximize the impact of market visibility tools. Most women's hospitals utilize a multi-media approach to build awareness and preference for their medical staff and facility. The use of the Internet is crucial. Women avidly conduct online research in support of healthcare decisions. Innovative organizations will convert these Websites, particularly social networking sites, into proactive relationship vehicles through the use of bi-directional communication and the single point of entry concept referenced in point 6 above. Actual social networking also plays a prominent role. A competitive edge may be achieved through a combination of establishing physical and virtual networking events.
10. Demonstrate clinical quality in a proactive way. Quality initiatives must go beyond internal data collection, benchmarking, and corrective action plans. Given the proliferation of public report cards and patients who are increasingly conducting Internet-based research, it's crucial that women's hospitals proactively manage their quality of care image. This entails setting and managing to operational performance targets that will enable differentiation. It also entails use of proactive public relations campaigns to highlight distinctions achieved by members of the medical staff and the hospital as a whole.
Establishing a successful, cutting-edge women's hospital is a huge logistical challenge. However, a dedicated management initiative following these steps can make it possible.
Mark Dubow is a senior vice president with the Camden Group. He may be contacted at (310) 320-3990, or by e-mail at mdubow@thecamdengroup.com.
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When looking to reduce long-term healthcare costs, health plans usually look to the chronically ill and implement programs in hopes of improving outcomes. Health plans should additionally look to a much younger set—infants and their mothers.
The cost of preterm births was at least $26.2 billion, or $51,600 for each preterm infant in 2005. The length of stay for premature children is 13 days, compared to 1.5 days for a term infant. In a preterm child's first year alone, the average medical cost, including inpatient and outpatient care was about 10 times greater than for term infants, according to the March of Dimes.
But health plans should not just analyze the first year of a preterm infant's life. Preterm babies can suffer long-time (sometimes lifelong) health issues.
With this information in mind, health plans are beginning to implement programs geared to help women with high-risk pregnancies. Matria Healthcare has an outpatient management program for women with preterm labor, and a study found the program saved money through fewer ER visits, averted antenatal hospitalizations for the mother, and fewer neonatal ICU admissions for the newborn.
The Marietta, GA-based health plan found a 3:1 ROI when comparing the outpatient program to a control group. Overall, the study researchers reported Matria saved $12,597 per pregnancy during the study period.
"The ROI is one piece of it, but with these types of pregnancies, it's the impact of not just the cost of hospitalization of the mom and the immediate costs for hospitalization of the baby in a NICU, but there is also the long-term and disability costs that have to be borne by our healthcare system," says Gary Stanziano, MD, senior vice president at Matria. There are many reasons that a woman could have a high-risk pregnancy. One that might not come to mind immediately is alcohol or drug use. Kaiser Permanente's Early Start program is an obstetric clinic-based prenatal substance abuse treatment program that tests all expectant mothers for drug use and connects those in danger to a licensed substance abuse expert in the OB/GYN department of its 40 outpatient obstetric clinics.
A study recently published online on the Journal of Perinatology found that the Early Start program improved outcomes for expectant mothers using alcohol or drugs. The expectant mothers with substance abuse issues who were not enrolled in the program had significantly worse outcomes, including preterm delivery and placental abruption.
In addition to the licensed substance abuse expert, called the Early Start specialist, the program includes universal screening of all women for drugs and alcohol by questionnaire, and by urine toxicology testing (with signed consent). And the program educates providers and patients about the effects of drugs, alcohol, and cigarette use in pregnancy.
Nancy C. Goler, MD, regional medical director of the Early Start program for Northern California at Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, in Vallejo, CA, says a key to the program is universal testing, which removes any prejudices. She says testing for drug use should be as routine as treating diabetes.
"[Testing] needs to be universal, and as non-judgmental and non-punitive as possible," says Goler, who was also a co-author of the study.
ROI wasn't part of the study, but the researchers wrote that an internal business care cost analysis for Early Start resulted in a 30% cost savings.
These ROI numbers alone should serve as a wakeup call to health plans without high-risk pregnancy programs. But be forewarned: a high-risk pregnancy program might not see savings immediately.
Instead, expect to invest money in the front end with the understanding that longer pregnancies, and averted hospitalizations and ER visits, will save money in the long run.
Les Masterson is senior editor of Health Plan Insider. He can be reached at lmasterson@healthleadersmedia.com .
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Lost for ideas on where to target your audience? With gas prices and public transportation numbers at a high, why not look to transit advertising? Bayshore Community Health Services in Holmdel, NJ, is one facility that has recently decided to launch a transit-based strategy that has resulted in increased community awareness and local train station domination.
Bayshore launched initial research to determine where to target their consumers. "A lot of people who have moved to this area relocated from New York City,' say Bob Gagauf, president of Bayshore's agency, R&J Group in Parsippany, NJ. "We're in a booming real estate market in an area that is attracting more, well-off, sophisticated, well educated people. Being only 45–50 minutes from New York City, a good segment of that target market is going to be going through the train station.'
Focusing on a need to increase brand awareness, with a train station only a stone's throw away from the hospital, Bayshore jumped on the opportunity to target their audience in a new way. They used one-, two-, and three-sheet posters at various stations along the transit line along with light pole banners.
"If you went to the station all you saw were ads for Bayshore,' says Gagauf of the ‘train station domination' strategy. Bayshore also put up displays and deployed staff to interact with commuters, answer questions, and give out pamphlets.
The ads positioned Bayshore as a community facility with an interest in asking its consumers important questions about their adult lives with simple corresponding imagery. One example can be seen in the poster featuring an apple with copy that asks, "What's Next?' It goes on to discuss that health is a priority and that the professionals at Bayshore know where ‘you're' coming from. It finishes with, "Yes, welcome to time-crunched, fast-paced, wonderful adulthood—and care designed just for you,' with a call for action to the Web site neatly tying it all together.
An added bonus to the transit advertising is the length of exposure. With transit the average wait time for a train is about 5 minutes according to Gagauf. "That's more time than they would spend with a billboard,' says Bob Szalva, media director for R&J Group. "Most people are there every day, seeing the messages at all the stations.'
Overall, research showed that the outdoor advertising had the single largest increase in awareness for the facility. "There was a significant increase in awareness and in terms of effectiveness it was cost effective too,' says Gagauf.
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.
Hundreds of volunteer medical professionals in Virginia are preparing to break records again with the ninth annual Rural Area Medical Clinic from July 25 to 27. The clinic will provide a wide range of free medical care to those in need. The 2007 clinic set national records with 2,506 patients receiving 8,401 procedures, according to a news release from the University of Virginia Health System. Clinic organizers expect to break those records in 2008.
The American Academy of Family Physicians has created an online community for family physicians in rural areas. The Rural Online Community features links to headlines from national and local publications on topics of interest to rural FPs, an e-mail discussion list for community members, an online library community members can use to post resources to share with others, rural FP profiles, updates on pertinent legislative issues, a calendar of events for rural FPs across the country, and rural health resources on topics including reimbursement, coding, practice management and AAFP policies.
To help increase the number of physicians practicing in rural Arizona, every summer a select group of physicians in rural communities throughout the state has mentored medical students from the University of Arizona College of Medicine. The physicians volunteer as preceptors, or mentors, to UA medical students between the first and second years of medical school. The students work at the physicians' practice sites and reside in their communities. The physicians are rural faculty members in the UA College of Medicine's Rural Health Professions Program, established by the Arizona Legislature to encourage medical school graduates to practice medicine in rural communities.
Under a new program of the Colorado Health Foundation, doctors will get help paying off their medical-school student loans in exchange for agreeing to practice in rural communities. Fifty-seven of Colorado's 64 counties lack enough primary-care physicians to serve local people, state officials say. That's partly because young doctors need the higher salaries and fees available in big cities to pay off student-loans. The new "Physician Loan Repayment Program" is aimed to tackle the problem, officials say.
