by Dan Royer on Tuesday, May 19, 2009
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The two-day spring conference held April 27-28, 2009 for the Iowa Society of Hospital Marketing and Public Relations was a hands-down success. With nearly 100 members in attendance, the crowd was very active in the various sessions led by top talent in the health care marketing industry.
Five top-notch speakers
Ross Bruno of Hellman and Peter Sheehan of HealthGrades chronicled how patients are won and lost in the age of transparency, including painting profiles of patient audiences, current perception measures regarding health care in Iowa, and how communications are adapting to this new age in health care decision-making.
Barbara Mack, a professor at Iowa State University, livened the morning discussions with her humor, insight, sage advice and a few war stories, all in the name of good writing and successful communication. Mack even had the audience working through grammar and proofreading problems, getting everyone laughing in the process.
Lori Bruss of The Roberts Group and Genny Maroc, CEO, of Marengo Memorial Hospital looked examined how consumers often overlook small or rural hospitals in favor of larger medical centers in bigger cities. The perception is that
smaller hospitals can’t possibly provide comparable care, but both Bruss and Maroc explained just how smaller hospitals can compete and bridge the gap between perceptions and reality.
The second day started with Amy Davis, director of brand management and marketing at Mayo Clinic, as she enlightened the group as to the power of storytelling. Mayo Clinic is one of the most powerful health care brands in the United States, and they got to that position through telling their story to patients.
Last but not least, Brian Irby from CPM Marketing Group, Inc. presented how Johnson Memorial Hospital located in Franklin, Indiana has grown patient loyalty through customer relationship marketing (CRM). Irby discussed the numbers behind why it is so important to retain patients once they have used a hospital’s services and reviewed the dynamics behind getting patients to be loyal.
Additional pictures from the spring conference are available on Flickr under the ISHMPR tag.
Missed the conference? Find attendee notes on Twitter
While speakers were clicking through slides and giving their presentations, a few audience members were tweeting the best sound bites on Twitter, a microblogging service that allows you to post micro blog posts to a social networking profile.
All notices that were posted during the event were tagged with the #ishmpr hashtag, making it easy for someone else to track related tweets. To see all of the notes from the conference, take a look at this transcript of #ishmpr tweets.
To stay up to date with the latest happenings at IHA, the parent organization of ISHMPR, you can follow @iowahospital on Twitter.
by Dan Royer on Friday, May 15, 2009
For the first half of May 2009 there are four new CEOs to welcome at Iowa hospitals:
- Barry Jacobsen has been named CEO at Myrtue Medical Center in Harlan. He has been serving as interim CEO since January and had been CFO for the last 12 years.
- Bill Bumgarner has been named CEO at Spencer Hospital. He is expected to start July 1.
- Jason Harrington has been named CEO at Lakes Regional Healthcare in Spirit Lake. He replaces Richard Kielman, who will be retiring at the end of June.
- Jim Hayes has been named CEO of Unity HealthCare in Muscatine. He will start on June 15.
Congratulations to each of these CEOs on their new positions. IHA looks forward to working with each of them in their new roles.
by Dan Royer on Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Here are the latest additions to IHA’s list of Iowa hospitals using social media.
- University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, Iowa City, is on Twitter
- Veterans Memorial Hospital, Waukon, is on Twitter
The University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics have been using Twitter for some time, but Veterans Memorial Hospital just set up their official account today.
by Shannon Strickler on Monday, May 11, 2009
The American Hospital Association, along with other health care industry leaders, presented President Obama with a voluntary cost-curbing plan this morning. In a letter, the groups committed to work together as stakeholders to help achieve the administration’s goal of reducing health care costs by 1.5 percentage points over 10 years – saving $2 trillion or more.
The groups will focus on curbing cost increases through consensus proposals that:
- Make administrative simplifications across all sectors of the health care system.
- Reduce excessive utilization and under-use of health care by aligning quality and efficiency incentives.
- Encourage coordinated care and evidence-based practices.
- Reduce of the cost of doing business through delivery model improvements and information technology.
Many news reports today incorrectly reported that the plan promised to curb the growth rate of health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year for 10 years. But the letter clearly stated:
“As restructuring takes hold and the population’s health improves over the coming decade, we (hospitals, physicians, other health care workers, payers, suppliers, manufacturers and organized labor) will do our part to achieve your Administration’s goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points the annual health care spending growth rate — saving $2 trillion or more.”
IHA has long supported health care reform efforts that incent value by aligning quality and efficiency measures. Confirmed by the 2008 Dartmouth Atlas Project, IHA maintains that Iowa’s care delivery system should be a model for the nation of how to provide high quality care at a low cost.
A complete overview of IHA’s position on value-based purchasing is available for download.
by Dan Royer on Friday, May 8, 2009
According to a recent social media study by Michael Stelzner, an overwhelming majority (88%) of marketers say they are using some form of social media to market their business (Marketing Charts).
Survey respondents report that the top benefit of social media marketing is gaining attention for the business, and with 81% of all marketers indicating that their social media efforts have generated that exposure, those efforts appear to be paying off in a big way.
Improving traffic and growing marketing lists is the second major benefit, according to the study, followed by building new partnerships. The study also found more than half of participants reported that a major benefit of social media marketing is the resultant rise in search engine rankings that often comes with increased efforts.
Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook
The top four social media tools being used by all marketers are Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook, respectively. Twitter holds the top spot prominently with 86% of respondents saying they are using it.
Numbers for Twitter have not penetrated quite so far in the heath care marketing world, but a report from Ed Bennet says that there are 160 hospitals (out of 250 he is tracking) with Twitter accounts. The next most used social media tool by hospitals is YouTube, then Facebook and blogs.
Bennett is the manager of web strategy at University of Maryland Medical System and maintains the “Hospital Social Network List” on his personal blog.
Iowa hospitals are also engaged in social media, Twitter
To our knowledge there are five hospitals in Iowa using at least one of the social media tools above, and four of whom are using Twitter.
Similar to Bennett’s list, we’ve developed our own for tracking Iowa hospitals using social media. This list can be used as a reference to see what others are doing in the space. If you’re doing this stuff and not on the list, please post in the comments below with links to your initiatives.
You can also follow the Iowa Hospital Association on Twitter as @iowahospital. We post links to relevant Iowa stories, share health care industry resources, communicate with other health care professionals and promote the people, places and achievements of Iowa hospitals.
If you have questions about any of the statistics above or about how your hospital can be leveraging social media in your communication strategy, feel free to send in your questions or add them as comments on this post.
