health tips

A not so funny thing is happening during the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter-in-place orders across the country. People have stopped going to see their primary care doctor. And that my friends is not a good thing. While caution is understandable, the resulting action is not. It has never been more important to address medical issues and concerns before they become more severe problems from lack of attention and treatment. The pandemic does not mean that physicians are not practicing medicine and have shut down their practices. What it does mean is they are taking prudent precautions in scheduling patients and implementing the CDC guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Anecdotally, I am hearing that medical practices are down anywhere from 50 – 70 percent of their regular patient volumes. I can understand surgeons, anesthesiologists, and other specialty physicians hurting, but primary care should not be. The new normal if there is such a thing. And that, in a nutshell, is the marke...

As the COVID-19 pandemic looks like it could be reaching a midpoint with the apparent beginnings of a slowdown of the infection rate and hospitalizations, it is time to consider your mid-pandemic marketing strategy and plan. Consideration of the topic is especially important if you have “hunkered down” cut budget, staff and disappeared entirely from the marketplace. The time to start to come out from your business isolation is now. Not two or three months from now. How you begin to position and market your organization today will, in large part, determine the success or failure of your organization in the new normal. Your markets and critical influencers have short memories. While you stayed in contact with your existing clients, your prospects have forgotten who you are. By going silent and not developing and executing helpful, information-based resources for them strategy during the pandemic, your prospect will be turning to those that were present. The top of mind still plays an imp...

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a situation where hospitals, health systems and other providers have had to communicate transparently with meaningful content delivered on multiple digital and traditional platforms with patients and the community they serve. I am not in any way making light of the public health crisis taking far too many lives and pushing the hospital care system in the United States to the brink of collapse. A breakdown, it seems that is as much financial as it is in providing the necessary medical care. Quite the contrary. Today's post is thinking about moving forward and what that means for the patient and community. Expectations have been set as an unintended consequence, on how patients and communities expect to be interacted with, how they are communicated with, the meaningful and engaging content, and how that experience should look and feel.    There will be no "back to the future" and resuming the old ways of marketing and communicating. Healthc...

Hospitals, health systems, doctors, other providers, and vendors are faced with severe financial constraints during the COVID-19 pandemic response. Furloughs and layoffs are becoming a regular occurrence of non-essential staff as resources are redeployed within the hospital or the vendor attempting to cut costs to stem the bleeding as markets and sales grind to a silent halt.  Often, marketing budgets and personnel are reduced to a bare minimum as marketing expenses cut flow directly to the bottom line. However, to stop marketing, communications, and public relations entirely is a strategic and tactical mistake, especially for vendors that they may not recover. The answer then, is a shift to the heavy use of digital and free social media platforms and channels, in an integrated fashion. It will also accelerate your shift to digital. Going silent. Going silent in the market is not an option for anyone.   It is a strategic and tactical mistake that places an organization behind ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended everyone's way of life. At a time like this, it is understandable that the ability to focus on the near-term future, when hospitals are strained past the breaking point, may seem an oxymoron.   But focus we must, with at least some consideration as to the role of marketing, communications, and public relations in hospitals and health systems will be as we come out of the public health crisis. An essential consideration because health care delivery has fundamentally changed, driven in part by world-changing external events. Some may say that the changes we see today in healthcare delivery were already in process, just accelerated as a forced change at that. Now, how hospitals and health systems communicate with patients, and the communities served has changed as well. There is no going back to the way we practiced marketing, communications, and public relations in the hospital.   Ever. How should we look at hospital marketing, communications, a...