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You may be missing an opportunity to tell the hospital brand story by not leveraging digital stories. Image by fancycrave1 from Pixabay In “Time spent per day with digital media vs. traditional media in the U.S. 2011—2020” , June 17, 2020, Statista found that individuals spend, on average, 7.5 hours per day looking at digital media. That is a lot of time per day spent looking at a screen- be it a desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone. Facebook revealed that over 1 billion users per day use stories. On Instagram, users spend between 24- and 32-minutes watching stories. Marketing Land found from brands using stories, that between 15 to 25 percent of Instagram story viewers will swipe up when links are provided. I realize that these stats are related to CPG brands. My intent here isn’t to say that the hospital needs to market like a consumer-oriented company but to point out the opportunity of digital vs. traditional media.   The hospital has an engagement problem. When you consider ...

Image by pasja1000 from Pixabay The CMS final rules on hospital price transparency require hospitals to offer downloadable standard charges and negotiated rates with shoppable services on their website by January 2021. The CMS mandate adds a new layer of financial complexity to hospitals. As patients potentially comparisons shop, patients could choose less expensive providers creating additional revenue shortfall for the hospital, on top of the already precarious state of hospital finances caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. But getting ready for January 2021 requires that four additional questions be asked and answered. You can't wait until January to react. By reacting, I do not mean adding the documents to your website. I am discussing preparations in responding, too, and being proactive in the marketplace. Putting up the documents on the website is simple once the internal deliberations are resolved. Now comes the hospital's marketing strategy and tactical execution- inter...

Seriously, when was the last time an audit of the hospital marketing department was completed? Image by Mohamed Hassin from Pixabay I ask this question as the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has changed everything in healthcare for the hospital. When I say everything, my focus is on top-down from financial planning to business strategy, operations, and care. Given that is the case, then why wouldn’t the hospital or health system audit the marketing department to ensure that the messages, brand and positioning strategies, tactics, execution, results, and marketing department structure, reporting relationships, and personnel are still relevant? It’s an important question. With hospital care upended due to the pandemic, it forced patients to become connected digitally, and in finding alternative, more convenient sources of care, i.e., telemedicine, for example, means it’s a new day for hospital marketing.   Image by Enign Akyurt from Pixabay Patients are not returning in droves for care for a ...

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay The hospital quality award season is underway as various organizations and magazines with their black-box analytics, tagging hospitals, and health systems, as the best or tops in (insert category here). I am not making light of the accomplishment as quality awards are essential at some level for the consumer information.   But, we are in a pandemic, and that changes the nature of the patient and community interaction. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic adds a new layer of complexity, leading to a critical question. How is the hospital and health system positioning the quality award contextually around the pandemic? The question is asked in all seriousness due to seeing a plethora of award advertisements that are pre-pandemic. There is no context or content on the value and meaning of the award. Why, in that case, should the patient and community care?   Is this wow, look at us? Or, maybe a checkbox for senior management, the Board of Directors, and ...