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.

The spring conference event for the Iowa Society for Healthcare Marketing and Public Relations begins this afternoon, overflowing with marketing expertise from five outstanding experts in their field.

The Hilton Garden Inn in Johnston, IA is hosting the ISHMPR Spring Conference today and tomorrow. Read more

The Iowa Society for Healthcare Marketing and Public Relations (ISHMPR) is bringing together some of the brightest minds in the business for its 2009 spring conference.  Five outstanding “Ask the Experts” sessions, plus special networking opportunities, will make this one of the most engaging and informative ISHMPR conferences ever produced.  Among this year’s topics:

• Customer relationship marketing: Using a hospital case study and years of health care marketing experience, Brian Irby of CPM Marketing will show how to attract and retain patients, even in challenging small markets.
• Employees and the hospital brand promise: Join Amy Davis, director of brand management at the Mayo Clinic, as she shares how hospitals can build a corporate culture that engages employees at all levels.
• Small hospital marketing: Lori Bruss from The Roberts Group will help participants discover how coordinated internal communications and external marketing can bridge the perception gap for rural facilities.
• Winning patients in the age of transparency: ISHMPR member Ross Bruno of Waterloo-based Hellman will show how to make transparency a marketing weapon that kills negative perceptions and wins patient loyalty.

The 2009 conference will also see the return of one of ISHMPR’s most memorable presenters, Iowa State University (ISU) journalism Professor Barbara Mack.  Combining her expertise in communication, writing and language use with the humor and storytelling that has made her one of ISU’s most popular professors, Mack will teach practical skills that take the “wrong out of write.”

Despite this stellar line up, which includes expert speakers from five different states, this year’s ISHMPR conference is holding the line on cost; the registration fee is the same as 2008 and still includes lunch and breakfast.  Participants will also be afforded time to share bright ideas and engage in a roundtable discussions on current marketing and public relations issues and strategies.

The ISHMPR Spring Conference will be held April 27-28 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Johnston.

If you are interested in attending, you can register online.