Podcasts about revivehealth

Evaluating operational effectivenessMarketing teams are increasingly playing a more prominent role in the operational success of organizations – including health systems.It's common to start operational improvement by refining your org chart, but this approach commonly fails to recognize how teams and individuals work together. What's missing is the connective tissue.It's really easy to say “let's cut costs” and do less, but it's hard to look at how you can do more by streamlining the way you're doing things – what you do, how you do it, who you do it with, how long it takes, and what it costs.According to Philip Guiliano, operational success starts with clearly defined roles and responsibilities which can be challenging for health systems because marketing is commonly decentralized across service lines, hospitals, etc.Making your technology work for you – not against youDecentralization across large organizations can result in duplicate contracts with technology vendors when these organizations only need one instance with custom environments for different needs.Centralizing technology management reduces waste and helps teams utilize their technology to its full potential.Widen the scope of who can use the technology and how the technology is used. For example, a brand asset management tool or CMS could be helpful organization-wide.Business requirements and functional requirements should drive technology adoption. With this baseline, your team can build on what you have with new modules.Committing to vendors and partnerships that deliver business value Marketing can reclaim budget from operations centralizing vendor management. For example, your org may have 300 different kinds of signs created for various purposes across numerous independent stakeholders, but in reality, only need 15.When working with agencies, ask yourself: What are they doing for us, what could they do for us, how do they work together, who's performing and who's not. Build matrix to reassign responsibilities according to strength while also consolidating.Help agencies understand how they should work together and which business goals they are working toward as a unit. This will remove the “juggling” and make for more efficient agency partnerships.Marketing is often introduced to partnership and consolidation conversations once a deal has been finalized, neglecting the weight of brand, messaging, and budgetary needs.Embedding marketing in consolidation deals and growth conversations sooner also allows for a proper evaluation of business unit interaction – how they interact in both current and desired state. This precaution can prevent unnecessary competition between business units. 

Chris Bevolo, Chief Brand Officer at Revive Health and host of the No Normal Show podcast joins this episode of RadioRev to talk about the quick transformation virtual care underwent as COVID-19 forced the world to shut down. Chris answers questions like: What's the difference between telehealth and virtual care? Once the pandemic started, how did legacy health systems handle the overnight need for virtual health and how are they innovating to keep up with demand? As we emerge from the pandemic, where do we go from here? To connect with Chris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisbevolo/ To listen to the No Normal Show podcast: https://www.thinkrevivehealth.com/no-normal To learn more about ReviveHealth: https://www.thinkrevivehealth.com/ Chris Bevolo is Chief Brand Officer at ReviveHealth, a full-service healthcare marketing agency based in Nashville, TN. He has worked with dozens of hospitals and health systems across the U.S. in the past two decades, is a frequent keynote speaker, and has authored six books on healthcare branding and marketing.

Resources CEO of UPS in NY times Lego makes strides in sustainability TakeawaysTwo sides of the same coin: Purpose & brand experience Health systems need to approach branding differently than they have in the past to compete with powerful consumer brands establishing footholds in healthcare. One of the ways systems can embark on a new path is by rethinking "purpose.'Most health systems and hospitals assume they have purpose down pat – after all, they save lives every day. But there can be more to purpose.FutureBrand looks at the balance of purpose and brand experience. To them, purpose means nothing if it is not substantiated through a brand experience – regardless of audience.Redefining brand purpose What brand purpose is: A promise lived in every action or engagement – it has many hands, many stories, and is felt by all of your customers and employees. It is the tangible and enduring mark a brand leaves on the world, how it lives in the world, and makes it better than it found it.What brand purpose isn't: A compulsory mission statement on your website, a promise you make 1-2 times a year in a campaign or activation, or the words that are referred to now and again in company town halls and stakeholder presentations.What it means to be a sustainable brand COVID-19 and climate concerns have up-leveled what sustainability means today.Sustainability is no longer taking siloed actions for the good of the planet; instead, it's a full-court press to improve the well-being of the planet, the lives of people who live on it.Brand purpose goes beyond consumer experienceThe difference between a high-performing brand and a low-performing brand depends on the brand's ability to balance purpose and experience.The P&G brand does this well by actively living up to its corporate promise of "Touching lives, improving lives."A brand-led approach lessens the need to react to heightened public expectations. 

TakeawaysUsing data to better understand our audiences Last week we discussed the use of ethnographies to better understand our audiences by experiencing their lifestyles. In this episode, we expand on that topic sharing how data can supplement ethnographic research.When working with Community Health Innovations (CHI), we used data to scale the findings from our ethnographic research to encompass the community rather than the select households interviewed.We pooled the data from the full county to identify who might be susceptible to diabetes by comparing it to SDoH characteristics defined by the National Institute of Health. The ethnographies were applied to this data to make channel and messaging decisions.Using data to identify and understand opportunities for growth One of our health system clients wanted to know the viability of expanding into a new market in Manhattan by acquiring a physician practice.To understand the viability of this acquisition, they needed visibility into ROI potential, the practice's current patients, where the patients come from, and how willing they are to travel to a new location.To clarify these unknowns and define market potential, we analyzed survey results, patient data, claims data, and consumer demographic data.Using data to better target our marketing efforts Another health system client is continuing its path towards aggressive growth and expansion, emphasizing the need to understand the nuances of consumers across markets.ReviveHealth provided detailed market research focused on analyzing demographics, health behaviors, media preferences, and competitive insights for each new location.We were able to answer questions such as “where is the concentration of growing families?” “How can we best reach them?” “Which competition is close by?”Armed with data, the marketing team was able to position itself as a proactive strategic partner to the organization and provide marketing strategies to support growth.

Brandon Edwards started his career in the issues management / crisis / grassroots / public affairs-focused healthcare division of a multi-industry, multi-practice Santa Barbara agency. In 2009, a toxic rift developed between Brandon's growing medical services division and the rest of the faltering agency. Brandon and his division associates bought out their piece of the business and formed ReviveHealth. It took almost 6 years to go from being issue based to what it is today – a full-service. integrated, all audiences, all channels firm serving B2C, B2B, and B2P, the business to physician/provider side. Santa Barbara was “an extremely high-cost market” with neither a strong employment nor a strong healthcare base. In 2011 decision was made to move to Nashville, TN, which Brandon refers to as “the Healthcare Capital of the World.” He cites Tennessee's central time zone, big airport, abundance of talent, and lack of a state income tax as major incentives for the move.  Brandon feels his agency has a “good business moat” – healthcare is an extremely complex business with major regulatory impacts. Even if generalist firms are good at strategy, they won't be able to deliver in-depth, healthcare-specific strategies or may lack corresponding creative skills. Firms that specialize in “creative” have the potential to propose solutions that could “send you to jail.”  In this interview, Brandon explains how too many medical organizations try to bring customers in through “the side of the funnel,” perhaps by marketing heart surgery to people (who may or may not have a heart attack in the next two weeks). “That's not how funnels work,” he says. “You need to bring them in through urgent care, primary care, preventative care, diagnostic care – some percentage of people that start in the top of that funnel are going to end up needing other services, whether that's PT or surgery of some kind, and all of the other attendant care that comes with it.” What makes an agency in this niche market work?  First, Brandon says, “You have to start with the right people that have the right talent and the right knowledge base.” Even then, it can take 12 to 18 months for a new hire's skills to become a “mature practice.” Strategy has come from a deep understanding of the healthcare business. To be effective, creative work, which comes from outside of healthcare –needs to be interesting and provocative. And process? “Healthcare is not a hobby,” Brandon says. HIPAA restrictions dictate everything the agency does, including information architecture, how information is shared with clients, and marketing campaign design. One early strategy core to the company was the idea of “being built to be sold,” merged, or transferred to employees through an ESOP (Employee Stock Option Plan). The intention was to always keep the firm as if it were “for sale tomorrow,” which informed hiring, compensation, professional development, branding, business development, and marketing decisions. Profits were consistently poured back into company growth. The agency did not expand by adding offices. Instead, it invested in hiring to expand and deepen capabilities, increasing offerings, and buying the tools, technology and data needed for “doing the job” now and in the future. ReviveHealth was recently bought out by IPG, Weber Shandwick, which Brandon says has been and continues to be “a really positive experience.” From the beginning, he built to sell . . . and then, he sold. All it took was sticking to his plan and “little luck”  Transcript Follows:   ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Brandon Edwards from ReviveHealth based in Nashville, Tennessee. Welcome to the podcast, Brandon. BRANDON: Thanks for having me. ROB: Why don't you kick it off by telling us about ReviveHealth and what the agency's superpowers are? BRANDON: Revive is a healthcare-only agency. We're healthcare focused. Located here in Nashville, which a lot of people know for country music, but it really is in many ways the healthcare capital of the world. It's a pretty phenomenal healthcare city. While we founded the firm on the West Coast, we relocated out here to Nashville in early 2011. Our superpower is really helping healthcare brands thrive. It's helping healthcare brands that want to lead the way. What we mean by that is really bringing to bear the full spectrum of marketing communications in the truest sense of the word “full-service” in a way that is very strategically focused on what we view as an underserved segment of healthcare. Most healthcare firms are dominated by pharma or government or med device; our clients really focus on the provider sector of healthcare. So hospitals, health systems, large physician enterprises as well as health tech and health services. ROB: It's an interesting place to get into. I think there's probably some interesting stories around the conviction to move. How do you go about saying, “I'm in California” – it's like the opposite of the Beverly Hillbillies. You're like, “Tennessee is the place where we gotta be.” BRANDON: It might be the opposite of the Beverly Hillbillies, but I'll tell you the people from Tennessee are probably tired of Californians moving here. There's no state income tax in Tennessee. It's a huge growth market, and yet everywhere Californians go, so go property values. We drive up home values in a very unflattering way. The story is actually kind of interesting. We started in California. I'm from California, my wife's from California, we founded the firm in California. We started the firm September 1st, 2009, and we all remember what was happening in 2009. The recession couldn't have been any worse. If you think about the unique aspects of headquartering a professional services business, particularly one that is highly specialized in healthcare, we were located in an extremely high-cost market without a strong employment base – without a strong healthcare base, actually. All of our talent was going to have to come from somewhere else. In 2009, no one could move to Santa Barbara because they couldn't afford to buy a home there if they couldn't sell their home. No one could afford to sell their home. If they were married or had a partner, that person couldn't find a job in Santa Barbara. So, we really reached the conclusion that for purely strategic purposes, we had to go where the talent pool already existed. We considered a couple markets, but it wasn't even close. Nashville was far and away the lead for us. It has a big airport, central time zone, really easy to get around, and has an incredibly deep talent base. I didn't initially know I was going to move my family here. We thought we'd open an office and staff it. My wife actually suggested we move here. I'd been on the road 150, 200 nights a year for our whole lives, and I think the entirety of her pitch was “If we move to Nashville, you'll get to have a lot more dinners at home and be with the kids more,” and that was it. She's a rare person that volunteered to leave Santa Barbara. ROB: Yeah, that seems like a direction that a lot of people wouldn't go, except what you said: to an extent, you were a frontrunner. I imagine this past season, you read about what's going on with real estate prices, and basically everywhere is functioning as a suburb of the California real estate market. I think you might've beat some of your friends to Nashville. BRANDON: Yeah. We were maybe the front edge of the wave in the summer of 2012, and now the wave is in full force. It's everybody relocating here. It's California, New York, Chicago, big cities fleeing to a slightly smaller city, but a city where, again, there's no state income tax. From an affordability standpoint, it's a very different animal.  ROB: When we think a little bit about your specialty, Brandon, what is it? What are the distinct needs both from a strategy perspective as well as a channels and distribution perspective of this healthcare group specialty market? BRANDON: It's a very nuanced segment. On the one hand, I think we feel like there's a good moat around our business from the standpoint that generalist firms can't really parachute into a highly specialized area like this and deliver the same kind of value and strategic counsel that we can. So our competitive set is a bit more limited. You also tend to attract people who have more specialized careers. In some ways, from a recruitment standpoint, it's self-selection. My phrase for it is “healthcare is not a hobby.” It's an extremely complicated business with an intense regulatory overlay, and it also is highly emotional for people. I think maybe finance is the closest area to it in some ways because of all those factors. From our standpoint, the tradeoff that most clients had before Revive was they could pick a firm that could really help them with strategy, but that firm was going to suck at creative. The flipside is you could hire a firm that was really creative and interesting, and some of the work they were going to propose would send you to jail. Being able to bring together this deep understanding of the business so that the strategy is rooted in a deep understanding of the business of healthcare, how the organization is going to make money if you keep its mission alive, coupled with creative that largely comes from outside of healthcare so that we have fresh ideas and really interesting, provocative, and effective creative, was really not a value prop that existed in our industry 12 years ago. ROB: It would seem to me that part of that story of being able to bring in those outside folks, those new perspectives, but not going to jail, also plays into process a little bit. How have you thought about the emergence of process, of getting that regulatory overlay and consistency across the organization? BRANDON: First, I think you have to start with the people part of it. I promise I'll answer your process question, but if you don't start with the right people that have the right talent and the right knowledge base, my view at least is there's no process that's going to save you from that. When we look at more senior level leaders in the firm in particular – I would say even mid-career and up – we look at people who already have a pretty deep established understanding of healthcare. If you bring in someone who's never touched healthcare and they've been in business for 15 or 20 years, I defy anybody to sit and explain HIPAA to someone in a way that's going to make any sense to them. There are so many aspects of the industry that normal people just cock their heads and say, “That doesn't make any sense.” It's like, you're absolutely right, and it's just the way it is. So I think it starts with people. From a process standpoint, you still have to have process and safeguards. We do extensive HIPAA training. HIPAA and the restrictions around use of data dictate everything about our information architecture, how we share information with clients, how you design marketing campaigns that can be effective and still be well within the bounds of those. So you really have to think through the processes in terms of not just what you do in a normal agency to get good work, but to get good work within the guardrails of what's allowable in the healthcare industry. ROB: That seems like a totally different mindset, and I can see that domain expertise from the experienced voices helping to train and bring up the next wave of talent. One thing I'm curious about – the timing of your focus in the space seems impeccable. The narrative of this past 10-15 years of the consolidation of the healthcare groups, the rise of these regional healthcare-group-sponsored office parks – it's a real thing. I see it all around me. How did you end up at the right spot on that wave? It could've been easy to be too early and easy to be too late. BRANDON: Yeah. I would love to tell you that it was incredible wisdom and vision on my end, and that just wouldn't be true. [laughs] I wish that's what it was. There were a group of us that were in another agency. We were essentially the healthcare practice, a place where I was a minority owner, and it was a multi-industry, multi-practice firm but had built up and created this healthcare presence within that firm. But that firm was very focused. It was essentially an issues management / crisis / grassroots / public affairs firm, so the healthcare practice we had built was very focused on those kinds of services and that kind of work for clients because that was the firm's positioning. And I think it was the right positioning for that firm. We got to 2009 and the rest of the firm outside of healthcare shrunk dramatically. Remember, this is the same time that the ACA was being debated and passed. This was the same time that there was going to be a substantial need for all kinds of expertise in the healthcare space, including marketing communications work. I think unfortunately, when you're in an agency that may be struggling a little bit – what do they say? Character is revealed by difficult times, not created by it. I think what was unfortunately revealed in that moment was a somewhat toxic culture in the other agency. So, when we looked to buy out the healthcare practice and form Revive, we really viewed it as an opportunity to go from being a healthcare practice in a diversified agency to becoming a healthcare agency, as well as an opportunity to really diversify the offering into truly full-service integrated marketing work. For us, there was this really great established base of clientele to work from and help to fund that expansion, but what started was a journey that took I would say 5-½, almost 6 years to go from being issues-focused to being a truly full-service integrated firm. ROB: From a channel mix perspective, you mentioned a PR and comms legacy; what does the channel mix look like today, and where is it heading within the healthcare space? BRANDON: I think the simplest way to put it would be it's really all audiences, all channels. We've gone from planning for earned to planning for earned and social to planning for every stripe of media and every stripe of channel and bringing in people with integrated planning backgrounds, bringing in people that are deep in digital and social and traditional. We actually plan and buy our own media across all channels. Very unusual for a firm our size. But one of the interesting nuances working with media buying, for example, in this space is that most media buying firms really want to buy large campaigns on a regional or national basis, and hospital media in particular is bought almost exclusively on a local community basis. The joke is if you go to work for a big brand, you're going to spend $50 million in $5 million chunks; if you go to work for a hospital, you're going to spend $5 million in $50,000 chunks. It takes a very different structure and thought process to create the media function. And that's just one thing. You still have to think about all of the creative and all of the different areas. We really think about all audiences, meaning we're looking at consumers, we're looking at current and past patients, we're looking at employers and brokers, we're looking at physicians and board members and donors, and then the people within those hospital or healthcare organizations that are purchasing from our health services and health tech clients as well. We really have both B2C and B2B as well as B2P, the business to physician side. It's really a robust channel and audience mix. ROB: It's a really fascinating mix, and it reminds me, as you talk about the regulatory overhead, I could see somebody 10 years from now – you mentioned Fintech earlier; I think various dimensions of Fintech seem like they're positioned both for some real growth versus synthetic growth, but also probably a good bit of regulation ahead. I think if somebody has a brain for that sort of thing, they might do well to start navigating the legality. There might be a good practice there. BRANDON: I'm sure you're in the same boat; I talk to a lot of younger people that are interning or are interviewing with us or whatever it is, and I think there's this tendency when you're younger to think about the sexy things, whether it's gaming or sports or whatever it is. Yet I believe in many ways, the best way to create a career that's going to maximize your value is to find these industries where you can develop indispensable knowledge. I think healthcare is one. I think finance is another. I think maybe once upon a time, defense department type work was. Maybe higher ed. There are some industries that require an incredible amount of focus, and perhaps the skillsets aren't as transferrable between working for one set of consumer products or CPG or whatever it is, but boy, it sure is value-creating for you from a career standpoint. ROB: Brandon, to switch gears a little bit, one part of your story I think we would be remiss not to touch on is the experience of being acquired. Many firms have that wish, but I think I heard recently maybe 1 in 400 agencies will actually ever be acquired. How did that process commence? Was that something you engaged in intentionally? Were you just sticking to your knitting and somebody took notice of what you were doing? BRANDON: We have a lot of flaws as an agency, just like any group of people does. But not being strategic and thoughtful isn't one of them. In our very first strategic plan, September 1st, 2009, when there were four of us, the strategic plan says “Revive is being built to be sold.” There's a little asterisk next to “sold” that says “It's not really about sold; it's about merged or an ESOP to employees or whatever.” But the thinking was, and I think a lesson learned perhaps from previous agency experience, is the worst thing you can have is an agency that you need to sell and can't. It's a bit like owning a home. They always tell you when you're younger, don't have the most expensive house on the street. You don't want to own a house you can't sell. And most people love their home – of any day they own it, the love it the most the day they put it on the market because they've done all the things to make it beautiful and have curb appeal. They've landscaped it, they've painted it, they've fixed all the little dings and scratches. I think agencies are a lot like that. We viewed it as we wanted to keep the firm always like it was for sale tomorrow, and that meant how we hired, how we comped people, how we did professional development, how we thought about our brand, how we did business development and marketed ourselves, how we paid ourselves. We took the view that the owners would comp themselves as employees. We would not take money out of the business; we would pour everything back into growth. So it was always about building enterprise value. We didn't really set a timeline on it. I think maybe in that first plan we said 10 years, and honestly we just sort of made hat up because it seemed like a long time. It turned out not to be. [laughs] But we went into it with that attitude, and it became a filter for every single decision that we made for the business. And I think in a lot of ways it helps to keep you from being selfish. It's really easy to have a great year and think “I think maybe we should pull a bunch of money out and go buy something cool” or whatever, I don't know. We didn't do that. The only money we took out of the business was for taxes, basically, and our individual compensation, which was set and didn't change much during all those years. We would call the question every year in strategic planning, and every year the answer was “No, we're good.” Then we get to the end of 2014. We had grown 60% that year. We had added digital content, social, we had purchased another firm, and we got to the end of the year and called the question of strategic planning, and the group unanimously said this would be the right time to look for a partner. “Let's find someone who has been through this process of integration and can help us do this better and help us grow faster and help us avoid the pitfalls that come with going from being a single discipline firm to a really diversified agency.” ROB: It's interesting to hear that intentionality from the start. I think there's probably some threads to pull on there. For instance, I think you mentioned casually ESOP. It would be good to dig into that. When you think about building from the start, a technology startup will think about issuing stock options to their employees to ensure that they get to share in an acquisition. But that's so often incompatible with a services organization. How did you think about employee comp, sharing in an exit, that sort of thing? BRANDON: Probably not as well as we should've. [laughs] I think you'd always be better at this the second or third time than you were the first time. Let me back up for a second: we had a great experience with the sale. We went about the process in a very nontraditional way. We had a great experience with the transaction. We had a great experience with the earnout with our buyer, which is IPG, Weber Shandwick. You hear all these terrible stories from people, and I will tell you that we had none of that. we had a really positive experience and continue to. Our executive leadership team – we had no senior level departures at the end of the earnout. That's very unusual. Just a good experience. That said, I think we could've done a much better job – I could've done a much better job – leading up to the sale. We did not spread equity around as much as we probably should've. It wasn't so much that we sat down and decided not to as just it hadn't been a part of our plan, and by the time we went to sell, it was probably too late to make meaningful changes to the equity structure. We had five shareholders and five phantom equity holders just before the sale, and we then converted the phantom equity holders to real equity right before the sale because that was our buyer's preference. ROB: What is phantom equity? BRANDON: Think of it as another way of creating an incentive compensation structure that doesn't represent real ownership, so it doesn't necessarily give a holder rights to a percentage of the firm's profit or something like that. The upside is it can be given and taken away just like a bonus would; the downside is it gets taxed in ordinary income instead of capital gains. So it's a little bit more attractive for the company, a little bit less attractive for the holder. It may be a little bit less attractive, but it's substantially more attractive than getting nothing. I think ultimately, I wish we had distributed a little bit more ownership to some key people, particularly some people who really killed it in the last 5 years, but once you've entered into the transaction, it's too late to change the equity structure. ROB: And it's definitely tricky often, and not necessarily in your case – turnover in services can be higher. You also are dealing with the multiples that you sell for, typically. They're not the same in services as they are in startup land. What I want to pull on a little bit now – you mentioned a couple things. If you're building the sell, what comes to my mind is you have to be carrying decent margins on your services to be attractive to purchase. But then you mentioned that you and your partners were also not taking money off the table. I think where that probably points the flashlight a little bit is towards the question of: how do you strategically reinvest meaningful margins to build a business? I think that's where a lot of people typically throw up their hands and just take the money off the table. BRANDON: Yeah, and I don't think that's irrational. I say this as a predetermined outcome for us because this is what we wanted for our business, but to be fair, it's not at all irrational or even maybe a negative to say, “I don't want to sell the business. What I want is to get it to a point where I don't have to work so hard and I can make pretty good money and it creates an annuity for me and my family.” Yeah, there's some dangers of that, but there's dangers in selling too. So I don't know that there's a right or wrong answer to it. I think in terms of reinvestment, we really looked at it in two branches. I'll tell you up front the one we decided not to do, and that was that we were not going to expand on the basis of offices. We were going to look at reinvestment in people and technology as opposed to places. We've never opened an office for a client. We've never been in that mode. We've always had as few offices as we felt like we could get away with and still attract the right talent. So we looked at it in two ways. Early on, it was really reinvestment in hires that would expand our capabilities – sometimes deepen them, but mostly expand them. The reason I think that's a reinvestment is very often, when you're bringing on someone to build out a new capability, there isn't going to be enough revenue there really to justify that hire for some period of time. Typically for us, it was 12 to 18 months from the day we hired someone to the time that was a mature capability or mature practice. We would look at reinvestment in building out these capabilities, and that meant a creative department, that meant a media department, that meant digital capabilities, social media, content, research, all these different areas over the years. I would say hand in hand with that was reinvestment in the tools, technology, and data that could make those people effective. What does our media department need to do its job? What does our analytics group need to do its job? And what are they going to need in the future? What do we need to do in terms of data-driven marketing, whether that's Salesforce or other platforms that we use? All of which carry pretty sizable price tags and some of which are more difficult to monetize with clients than others. I think those are the big two. I would say a distant third was the constant reinvestment in brand building and business development for our firm. We have spent about 5% of revenue on an annual basis from the time we had 10 people in new business and corporate marketing, brand building, for Revive to always be punching above our weight, always be growing. As a result, we're showing 12-year compounded annual growth rates of about 25% a year. ROB: Wow. Sounds like a good company to buy if you're IPG. That's good. And you're still there, which must mean it's also a good job. BRANDON: I would like to believe that they could've bought anything they wanted and chose us. I find that flattering and a statement of confidence from them. But yes, they've been great to deal with, and honestly I've been glad to be here. It's nice to be part of a really great company. ROB: That's great to hear. That's a good acquisition story. Brandon, when you're looking ahead a little bit, what's coming up for ReviveHealth, and maybe more broadly healthcare marketing, that you're excited about? BRANDON: I think in some ways, in our segment of healthcare marketing, the pace of change is accelerating to where many of the things we're seeing now in healthcare marketing are the things that you would see more commonly in other industries. Typically, hospital marketing in particular trails other industries by a few years. We're starting to see that gap close. We're seeing a great deal more emphasis on data-driven marketing and personalized marketing. We're seeing a great deal more emphasis on social media and social media engagement – which, given how personal and human healthcare is, is sort of strange that it's just catching up to other industries now. But I think the biggest shift we're seeing is a mindset shift from hospital operators who have been accustomed to spending the bulk of their budgets on traditional advertising to build brands to hospital executives who see the power of real 4 Ps marketing that will drive volume and profitable growth to their institutions in a way that I think is almost taken for granted in many other industry sectors. ROB: Right. That's actually really interesting because many hospitals are massive institutions, but now they're also living under an umbrella where there was just one location and now there's four, and there's an attendant group of facilities around it beyond that. It's “Who's the brand?”, but also “Where is my local version?” That's what it seems like to me as a consumer. BRANDON: Not to be too flippant about it, but I think we all drive around town and you see these billboards with “heart surgery this” and “knee surgery that.” Does anybody really buy on that basis? I mean, it's not like you drive around and say, “That's interesting. I hadn't really thought about it, but my knee does hurt. Maybe I'll have surgery after all.” It's sort of silly when you say it like that. To me, this industry just begs for highly targeted, highly personalized, data-driven marketing. If I get you into what we call the top of the funnel – urgent care, primary care, preventative care, diagnostic care – some percentage of people that start in the top of that funnel are going to end up needing other services, whether that's PT or surgery of some kind, and all of the other attendant care that comes with it. I think most hospitals have tried to enter the funnel from the side, and it's sort of a joke for us. That's not how funnels work, right? You pour things in the top and they come out the bottom. We don't get to come in and say, “I just want to find those people that want to have heart surgery in the next two weeks.” It's like, no, let's engage people who are going to need heart surgery in six months, in a year, in two years, in three years. Look at more the lifetime value of the consumer as opposed to the transactional value of the consumer, and recognize that physicians play a huge part in it. Most of us go where our doctors tell us. ROB: Right. It starts with being in the provider network at some point. BRANDON: Absolutely. Who you have contracts with from an insurance standpoint, what your medical staff looks like, how effectively referrals are processed, if you provide easy access for consumers – telephone, digital, as well as other methods. It really is all 4 Ps of marketing. It is not just promotion. I think the industry was pretty dominated by promotion prior to maybe 5 to 7 years ago. ROB: That is tremendously interesting. Thank you, Brandon, for sharing your journey. Congratulations on everything you accomplished leading up to and even after the acquisition. It's a great part of the story to tell, and it sounds like the national marketing community is better for it. BRANDON: We have a great team, and anybody that does what we've done in the last few years and doesn't acknowledge some meaningful amount of luck is probably not being honest. [laughs] You can work hard all you want, but if you don't have a little bit of wind at your back, it's going to be pretty tough. ROB: The humility is definitely welcome. We all need a little bit of that luck, and sometimes you have to survive long enough to be lucky. Coming out of 2009 is nothing to dismiss either. Thank you so much, Brandon. We wish you and your team the best. Thank you for sharing your story. BRANDON: My pleasure. Thanks. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

TakeawaysWhat is ethnography, and why is it valuable? Surveys and focus groups can result in a “contaminated” interpretation of the truth in which the context of the survey or focus group influences participants' responses.One of the best ways to learn about your audiences is to observe their words, emotions, and actions in the context of their daily lives – this is called ethnography.Living and following your audience's lifestyle offers a more accurate picture of what they're thinking and doing, as it reveals unconscious actions and interpretations.For example, if you are evaluating product placement in grocery stores, observing someone shop in the context of their daily lives – every item they look at, reach for, or put back – may reveal more than the participant is aware of.When to use, when not to use Ethnography should be performed at the onset of a project because it allows us to understand human motivations and behavior that can then guide analytics and strategy.Ethnographic research offers rich opportunities for health system marketers to understand their patient populations because so much of health happens every day.For instance, a chronic condition can affect a patient's everyday life – what they can and can't do and the decisions they make. Understanding these lifestyle challenges allows health system marketers to cater to them.Ethnography is not a good approach for tactical tasks such as A/B testing creative or messaging because it can overcomplicate more minor decisions, making them more cumbersome.If you like people watching, you're halfway there Don't talk too much, and let the action unfold in front of you. Try to make your footprint in the research as minimal as possible.Much of the time, ethnographic research means going into someone's house, which is very personal. This is a privilege, so marketers need to do everything they can to make subjects feel comfortable.Interviewing populations without conditions can be as powerful as interviewing those with conditions because it offers a more holistic community perspective.For example, ReviveHealth and Community Health Innovations (CHI) partnered to perform ethnographic research on diabetes in Monterey County, CA. We spoke to 10 families around the county with similar education levels without screening for diabetes.Interviewing independent of diagnosis revealed patients suffering from diabetes without a diagnosis. It also gave us an understanding of the community dynamics diabetics live in.

Resources Five long-term consumer behavior changes due to COVID-19The Joe Public Retreat 2022 Takeaways The "untouchables" Making room for new, high-ROI initiatives could mean retiring old practices that no longer make sense in today's changed (and continually changing) world. We call these old practices the "untouchables" because they're often repeated on behalf of leadership without a clear business case.We discussed three "untouchable" marketing initiatives, including open enrollment campaigns, disease of the month campaigns, and the U.S. News & World Report.Modern brands are human brands The way people interact with brands has changed, and health system marketers must be more creative and relevant in how they connect with their audiences.Staying creative and relevant means we have to become human brands, prioritizing honesty and authenticity while listening to our audiences at every opportunity.Patients' experience of your hospital or health system brand must match your brand promise – what your patients can expect from you at every step of their consumer journey.Today's consumers have more options, and those options often offer low-stakes trial periods, resulting in waning brand loyalty. To counter this trend, health brands must become human brands.Thinking different, differently Creativity means taking risks and ignoring unfounded doubts. But don't just be different to be different. Be different to resonate.Between COVID-19, social unrest, and election turmoil, events within the last year created stressors and ignited new fires. The result: changed behaviors.Multiculturalism is no longer a nice-to-have. It has to exist in the data we pull, the strategy we employ, and the creative we develop. It's not just about language.Can you still have a single brand slogan? Will a broad slogan resonate across audiences? What are the implications if that is the case? Hospital and health system marketers must consider these questions.

ResourcesTrust Index ReportDeadly SpinUncoveredTakeawaysThe lay of the land Health plans historically integrated horizontally but now are integrating vertically, expanding their power within the healthcare industry.Growing payor reach and control creates a power imbalance that allows payors to force providers into minuscule reimbursement rates. This power imbalance works to the detriment of healthcare consumers.Trust Index results reach rock bottom For the last 12 years, ReviveHealth has published an annual Trust Index report which measures the level of trust between payors and providers based on honesty, reliability, and fairness. The Index represents 40% of the hospitals in America.This episode of The No Normal Show examines this year's results featuring health plan executive turned whistleblower, Wendell Potter.We thought that COVID-19 would rally the entire healthcare industry to solve problems together for the common good. Instead, the Index showed the greatest decline in trust in the past 12 years – a 34% decrease year over year.Uncovering the factors at play Health plans influence policy and the public through massive and expensive lobbying campaigns. This practice shifts blame for exorbitant healthcare costs to providers.Health plans unilaterally alter language in provider manuals that fundamentally reduce how much they reimburse providers for care.Health plans are accountable to shareholders, which means that their core objective is to turn a profit and lower utilization costs.Health plans are increasingly denying claims or requesting retroactive analysis with little explanation while also increasing prior authorization requirements and out-of-pocket costs. This delays treatment and increases costs for providers. 

Think of your favorite book. Is it your favorite because the synopsis on the back cover was really good, or is it your favorite because of the storyline and the interplay of characters? We'll admit — we kind of set you up for that one, but hear us out: sometimes (not all the time) to get the full value of content, you just have to experience the entire thing. This is one of those times. But, of course, we're not going to leave you hanging if you're not convinced. Here are a few of the questions posed by our audience and answers they received from ReviveHealth's CEO, Brandon Edwards, and EVP, Chris Bevolo.  Audience Questions When are ReviveHealth's clients planning to get back to their jobs as marketers and communicators to support the organization's business priorities?Unpopular opinion: While the dust may be settling, we are undoubtedly still in the No Normal and will be for a long time. For example, new variants in Michigan have caused hospitals to delay surgeries again to deal with an influx of hospitalizations.Even as businesses start to reopen, we have to remember that the world has been changed for good.We must accept these changes and re-establish our identity in this changed world. Who are you? How is your health system different? Who are you competing with?”What would you have *hoped* hospitals would have done in the COVID era to progress, but maybe they missed the opportunity on?  It would be remiss to ignore the limitations and significant lack of funding health systems faced during the pandemic.If adequate resources had been available, we would have hoped health systems would have dispersed care sooner rather than requiring patients to navigate complex medical campuses. Our organization believes that physician acquisition and partnerships is the key to financial growth. Our ad budget has been slashed in half this year ... how can we show our value with our hands tied by a limited budget?Many health systems spend their growth budget on acquisitions rather than looking internally to their marketing teams.  Communicating the value of your team may be challenging, but it is possible. Marketing and advertising are often (and mistakenly) used interchangeably. As marketers, we know that "marketing" is much more than that. Communicate that marketing means setting price strategies, developing messaging for target markets, filling your funnel, and keeping it full. As for the rest, you'll just have to listen to the episode for that. (:

Resources in Today's Episode:Setting the stage for Rapid RenewalConsumer trends reportAmazon expands Amazon CareChicago Trump Tower vaccinated early – thanks to hospital COO who lives thereDispatchHealth raises $135.8 million in series CKey TakeawaysIntroducing Rapid RenewalRapid Renewal is a phase of the No Normal representing healthcare's recommitment to long-term transformation. COVID-19 accelerated transformation in healthcare with much of the groundwork done by competitors vying for top-of-funnel services and insurers with eyes on health systems' margins.Catering to emerging trends such as dispersion, mistrust of experts, and worship of crowds in marketing plans will give hospitals systems a competitive edge.Dispersion – it's time to focus on "how" instead of "where"Dispersion is the re-distribution of efforts and resources to remove unnecessary friction and costs. Applied to healthcare, this means creating a fluid customer experience – independent of location.Shifts away from traditional care delivery models such as Amazon Care and DispatchHealth tighten the race for top-of-funnel-services by increasing care convenience.To counter these forces, health systems must renew the way patients interact with their brand to offer a better care experience.In vogue: mistrust of expertsBetween COVID-19 and socio-political unrest, 2020 saw a deep erosion of trust in government health institutions like the CDC or even CMS. Health systems and hospitals now have an opportunity to own the role of "trusted health expert" but should tread cautiously to maintain this newfound trust. Goodbye, top-down marketingThe public's trust no longer belongs to experts but instead to the crowds. To account for this change, healthcare marketers must start talking to people, not at people.To garner top-of-funnel engagement, healthcare marketers should look away from top-down marketing and transition to influencer, word-of-mouth, and peer-to-peer referral marketing. 

TakeawaysA wide geographic footprint doesn't come without its challenges Spanning 29 states, LifePoint Health needed to keep a constant pulse on the state initiatives affecting each of its markets. This required a clear and constant line of communication with the compliance team.  The marketing and communications team's greatest challenge was tracking and responding to changes across markets. For instance, South Carolina was the first of their markets to have a COVID-19 case, and therefore needed different communications than other markets at the time.  LifePoint was able to take learnings from each of its markets to iterate and refine marketing efforts.  Getting standardization and localization to work in harmony Local market leaders and corporate LifePoint Health strategists worked in tandem to produce effective results across state lines. Focus on service line marketing vs. branding depends on the competitive nature of the market. In more isolated markets with less competition, branding is less of a priority, but in highly competitive markets, branding takes the stage. Earning that coveted “seat at the table” COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of marketing and communications teams in achieving health system objectives. Now, it's up to us to demonstrate our strategic worth by supporting organizational initiatives. Maintaining marketing's position as a strategic partner calls for targeted hiring initiatives, alignment on strategic plans for the market, and executive buy-in. When communicating with executives, make sure you're speaking to the value points they care about. For instance, CFOs and CEOs will likely care more about the bottom line and ROI, whereas CNOs may care more about clinical quality. 

ResourcesData Confirms Alarming Trend: Covid-19 Fears Are Causing Americans to Avoid the Doctor's Office and Delay Routine Care Use and Content of Primary Care Office-Based vs Telemedicine Care Visits During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the US TakeawaysDefining your COVID-19 CRM strategyEmory healthcare implemented a CRM strategy in 2019 but had no real intention of mass communication with patients until COVID-19 hit. With more resources pointed toward crisis communications, Emory Healthcare now utilizes their CRM for monthly communications with patients from their CEO.  Amy Comeau predicts this increased emphasis on CRM communications will continue long-term as the COVID-19 landscape evolves. Why re-evaluating community partnerships is a good idea Relationships with community and senior centers offer health systems opportunities to reach patients beyond their EHR or CRM. Emory Healthcare hosts virtual sessions with community centers. These sessions offer engagement significantly beyond in-person information session benchmarks.Forming a 2021 marketing and communications strategyIt's hard to imagine a world where healthcare branding moves beyond COVID-19 messaging and creative. Healthcare communications should reflect this truth for the foreseeable future.  Healthcare marketers can prepare messaging strategies by defining responses based on pandemic severity. For instance, if variant infections accelerate, your team should plan for communications encouraging the public to wash their hands, wear a mask, and watch their distance. Health systems are learning how to balance crisis response needs with existing business objectives. With this knowledge, marketers are now leaning back into high-margin revenue streams.

Shannon McIntyre Hooper is a fellow classmate from the Duke University Fuqua School of Business Executive MBA program. Shannon talks about what it took for her to be awarded the coveted distinction of Fuqua Scholar, graduating in the 10% of our class. We also talk about what it was like to go back to campus for two weeks during COVID and how the experience changed our perspectives on business school education and networking.Shannon is a healthcare innovation and business strategy enthusiast with experience and leadership in both start-up and corporate environments. Currently, she is the Chief Growth Officer of ReviveHealth, which recently won healthcare agency of the year for 2020; their clients include the nation’s leading hospitals and health systems, as well as health technology and services innovators. Shannon has been on the frontlines of helping hospitals navigate PR, marketing and communications during COVID-19, and she shares her insights into what that process has been like and her predictions for changes to healthcare technology moving forward.Finally, Shannon has a deep understanding of stoic philosophy and she shares her wisdom for how stoicism can help make one a better CEO, executive and business leader.Discussion Topics:(2:10) Strategy for becoming Fuqua Scholar.(5:40) Business School Bubble. Going back to campus for school during COVID-19.(9:43) Stoicism in business and how stoic philosophy can make one a better business leader.(27:04) Marketing, communications and strategy for hospitals dealing with COVID-19.(30:44) Expected innovations for healthcare technology.(35:28) Rapid fire questions.

Resources from today's episodeHealth workers, stuck in the snow, administer coronavirus vaccine to stranded drivers Washington state hospital apologizes for prioritizing top donors for COVID-19 vaccine Framing What We Do with a Noun or a Verb: Are we “___ing”?  TakeawaysNeed for speedCOVID-19 has accelerated change, requiring health systems and their marketers to find new ways to move faster. Safety protocols and legacy processes can make it challenging to adapt to change.  Health systems can apply some agile marketing principles such as prioritization and iteration to serve COVID-19 demands but should be calculated in each iteration. Because the stakes are so high for healthcare communications, each iteration must carefully balance exactness and speed, as each iteration could potentially reverse public trust.Setting expectations for responsive brandingFaster change means our brands need to evolve faster to remain relevant and avoid sounding out of touch. Continually test messaging to see what's working and what's not.  Health systems should consider diversity equity and inclusion as a central pillar of every branding conversation. Incident-based branding efforts can translate as insensitive and self-serving.  On the horizon for healthcare marketers COVID-19 has increased public demand for quality communications, and consumers will likely maintain these expectations in a post-COVID-19 world.  Informative, relevant, actionable content marketing will be an essential function for health system marketing and communications, and consumer expectations for quality content will rise.  Marketers may play a more strategic role in health systems because of familiarity with new technology and the ability to bring data to the table.  We will have to continue to act as technology educators as virtual care becomes more embedded in today's healthcare system. 

Resources from today's episode The Principles for The No Normal Show  Biden inheriting nonexistent coronavirus vaccine distribution plan and must start 'from scratch  Live Updates: Biden Confronts a Confluence of Crises  TakeawaysVaccine distribution challengesWith limited supply and visibility into future supply, health systems across the nation sit between a rock and a hard place when working to meet public demand.Widespread challenges include undefined priority groups, lack of protocol buy-in across the organization, and demands on health systems to "play cop" when adhering to vaccine protocol.Health systems are attempting to address these challenges by utilizing EMR databases and requiring PCP visits before vaccination, but these methods can exclude some populations.Communications strategies to manage vaccine uncertaintyBe transparent about your current supply, visibility into future supply, the number of administered vaccinations, uncertain waiting times, and your plan to educate the public readily available.Address how you plan to ensure equity in distribution. For instance, some health systems are partnering with community centers and faith-based organizations. Health systems should adhere to "high-risk groups" defined by the CDC to avoid further fragmentation in vaccine communications.The vaccine's impact on health equityReports show African American populations are less likely to get vaccinated, and recent survey findings indicate that the problem isn't just access – it's identity.Industry leaders (predominantly white, male, middle-to-upper-class) took the vaccine to demonstrate faith in its effectiveness. The lack of diversity in these efforts creates an "us and them" dynamic, alienating populations who don't fall under the white, wealthy male umbrella.Health systems can address this gap by demonstrating successful vaccinations across different cultures and demographics.

Resources in Today's Episode:WHO infodemic management 50 actions trackerJohns Hopkins COVID-19 profiling by countryThe online competition between pro and anti-vaccination viewsKey TakeawaysThe Infordemic LandscapeAn infodemic is the widespread sharing of misinformation (false information spread accidentally) and disinformation (false information spread with an agenda) that makes COVID-19 interventions challenging.There is too much information on COVID-19, making it difficult for the general public to discern between factual and non-factual information.Frequent shifts in recommendations made by trusted leaders continue to damage the public's trust in the information they receive.Four tips for combatting misinformationGet to know your audience by conducting surveys, performing social media analyses, and continue to refine how you listen to your audience based on your findings.Distill science and research into a more understandable format to make information more approachable.Build resilience to misinformation by educating the public on misinformation, how it spreads, and why it's important to report.Engage with local communities by working with religious leaders, employers, unions, chambers of commerce, and other trusted local groups to amplify good health information.How social media affects the infodemicSocial media can accelerate misinformation, therefore we must standardize how to respond to misinformation by analyzing how it is shared, how it jumps channels, and how interactions vary across channels.Around 67% of people identify providers as a trusted source of information while only 11% report social media as a trusted source.

Resources in Today's Episode:“The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis Key TakeawaysLay of the land as a New President Takes SeatBiden faces unusual constraints as he plans to enter office, including walking into multiple crises on day one: The COVID-19 pandemic will continue to get worse over the coming weeks, the U.S. is facing major economic issues, including a cybersecurity hack with details unknown by the government; continued racial injustice and concerns over global climate change.Despite the fact that Biden's win is objectively decisive when compared to past presidents, one-third of the American population doesn't believe that he won the 2021 election.Democrats theoretically have control of the Senate at this point.Although it's in Biden's best interest to move beyond the final events of Trump's presidency without getting involved, this may be harder over the next 13 days as he finishes his term, and many discuss invoking the 25th Amendment.New Key Players Enter Political Arena“Personnel is policy,” and the establishment figures that Biden nominates give insight into what we can expect from future policyNew Expectations for Healthcare PoliticsBiden will likely make moderate legislative proposals, and the more progressive proposals he makes will be done by executive actionUnder Trump, the healthcare industry faced issues such as Twitter attacks, inconsistent messages, and poorly designed executive orders; under Biden and his new Senate, appointments will elevate people already respected within the industry, we can expect to see more pressure and constraint on pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, and there will be a tighter focus on following proper procedures and providing consistent leadershipBiden's Key PrioritiesTaming the COVID-19 pandemic through public health measures, vaccine distribution, and rebuilding public confidenceEconomic stimulus and folding other priorities –– infrastructure, climate, taxes –– into those effortsStrengthening the Affordable Care Act and in anticipation of a Supreme Court decision coming in the spring on whether or not it can be deemed unconstitutional based on a specific clause about taxesRestoring strength and security after a cybersecurity hack gives impetus to data privacy legislationUpcoming Healthcare Policy HighlightsContinued debate over the Affordable Care Act, whether it is constitutional, and the impact on our healthcare system if the Supreme Court decision eliminates this insurance option for millions of Americans who are currently seeking care in the pandemic.Pharmaceutical marketing may be more at risk for taxation as the U.S. likely faces a $2 trillion deficit in 2021.Among other priorities, price transparency in hospitals doesn't appear to be a high priority for Biden's appointees.

Resources in Today's Episode:Mayo Clinic's Presentation SlidesFive Long-Term Consumer Behavior Changes Due to COVID-19 Key TakeawaysDo We All Have an Equal Chance for Health? How to Forecast the FutureOn an annual basis, Mayo Clinic looks for a collection of trends.Some trends are healthcare-related, and some are macro-related and are affecting every industry.They take the trends and predictions and determine how these impact their organization.Five Forecasts for the FutureAccurate diagnosis, anytime, anywhere.The patient will see you now – this means that we believe there will be a day when consumers will be much more in control of their health care, and providers will need to adapt to that.Virtual visits will outpace physical interactions. Within two months of the pandemic, there were 2 billion virtual visits.Today's reimbursement model becomes old school – Healthcare is one of the last industries to go through consumer transformation.Research and education are game-changers.Predictions from October 2019 into what 2030 Will Look Like A massive increase in AI innovation.Cybersecurity from the standpoint of moving from attacks on individuals to attacks on hospitals and government entities.Big tech would not stay just in the realm of technology but will disrupt multiple different industries.Rise of consumerism – almost all consumers will feel a need to take control of their information.We're due for an economic downturn, and there will probably be two economic downturns over the next ten years.There will be job losses due to automation and technology implementations.Unaffordability is a big concern in healthcare.As they look at 2030, there will be a more significant increase in social division.

Resources in Today's Episode:‘1619,' a Podcast From The New York Times.Seeing White Podcast From Scene on RadioThe Radical King book by Martin Luther Dr. King Jr.Stamped from the Beginning book by Ibram X. Kendi Key TakeawaysDo We All Have an Equal Chance for Health? Wealth, class, and zip code can define your health.For Norton Healthcare and its community, West Louisville is where the most disadvantaged population lives.Norton Healthcare had a mobile prevention unit that drove around the west area providing free services and one medical practice nearby.Having partners is very important in addressing racial injustice issues in healthcare. It will continue to take excellent partners to combat these issues.Some areas have been neglected for far too long and need our attention – this is not just happening in Lousiville, but all over the United States.Impact of Systemic Racism on Health Where there is a wealth gap, there is a health gap.Minorities continue to have higher rates of mortality and morbidity than white people.Black adults have a higher chance of diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.Poverty affects housing, employment, education, food access, transportation, health services, and other social challenges.Norton Health utilizes community-based research and insights to identify needs and the appropriate action to serve their community best.Most health systems are not where they need to be with this issue – we need to be more open about where we're at how we always strive to grow and move forward as an organization.Five Health Imperatives 1. Norton Healthcare Institute for Health Equity. Founded on the belief that social class/zip code should not be the most likely determinant of health.Committed to removing barriers that prevent people from having the best health possible.New mobile units, points of care – improve access to care and establish care sites to manage chronic disease.Provide access to mental health resources.Committed to leading critical conversations focused on educating internally and the community.Dedicated to partnering with pipeline institutions to help identify/develop/increase the number of minorities in healthcare.2. Ensure access to primary care for everyone. Look at underserved areas and communities as well as underrepresented clinical providers.3. Mirror the community within Norton Healthcare Leadership. Redefine “leadership.”Evolve “officers and directors” quarterly meetings to a new “system leadership group.”4. Help employees engage in matters of importance to the community. Census, voting, community initiative support, etc.5. Invest money to address needs in underserved areas.Foundation commitment to raise matching funds.Put these dollars towards initiatives that are helping underserved areas.

Resources in Today's Episode:A New Resource by ReviveHealth: Un-coveredWhy the “Missing Domino” Matters So Much Key TakeawaysEnd of Year COVID-19 Updates America is once again breaking the record for the highest number of COVID-19 cases within the last nine months.People think the vaccine is a "silver bullet," and therefore, are beginning to relax more knowing it is coming, but it's not the "silver" bullet, according to Sean.Some people reach a point where they care less about their own safety than they do about just not having to deal with it anymore.The Mask Up campaign lead by Cleveland Clinic has partnered with over 125 health systems to reinforce the civic responsibility that everybody should be masking up and social distancing.There is no "national plan," and every state is left to figure out a game plan, creating conflicting guidelines for consumers.Why Marketing Governance Is Valuable The idea of marketing governance is an active experiment – but has had a ton of value for our system in the last three years.There are questions about who needs to weigh in on things, and that's what marketing governance is built to do. Because the last thing you want to do is issue a new marketing campaign, unleash a new communication strategy, or change an entire website infrastructure, and have key leaders ask why they weren't consulted or informed.The idea is to take the organization's key leaders and put them in a room together once a month to discuss key marketing initiatives to get buy-in, guidance, and inform them of the upcoming activities for them to support.The meetings are productive, and at a minimum, it allows everyone to be informed and aware of what's going on in the marketing and communications world.The Challenges of Marketing Governance During COVID-19COVID-19 became the number one priority for everyone, which meant the first few meeting during the pandemic's start went on pause.Eventually, this group could come back together and validate and approve a brand new internal communication effort for managers across the health system.

Resources in Today's Episode:Modern Healthcare Article: Insurers will owe massive MLR rebates next year, even if 2020 is normalModern Healthcare Article: Michigan Blues partners with wellness center companyThe Changing Consumerism Landscape Webinar on November 18th at 12:00 PM CSTThe Value Crisis for Health Systems Webinar on November 19th at 12:00 PM CSTThe Case for a Post Health System Brand Webinar on November 20th at 12:00 PM CSTKey TakeawaysCOVID-19 Predications By the end of January, we could be seeing 2,000 to 2,500 deaths a day in the United States.There is a concern that the surge will continue to erode volumes in elective surgeries right so that preventative care elective procedures.Typically, providers see a surge in surgical volume in Q4, which seems extremely unlikely this year.Inpatient surgical procedures are down 18.6% from last year.How the Election Will Impact the Hospital IndustryThe financial devastation that hospitals and health systems are facing will continue, even if theirs is a second stimulus package approved.Whether the new stimulus bills flow directly to hospitals or to consumers who then have money for discretionary spending ­– both of those will be helpful.But just like the first round of the CARES Act, the second bill will not be enough to close the financial gap for hospitals.Ultimately the message for marketers and hospital executives is like the saying about how “God helps those who help themselves”, and the stimulus is not going to save us from a terrible financial year.In the payor space, people are not going from commercial to uninsured; they're going from retail to Medicaid.Critical Areas Health Systems Need to be Thinking About A new competition is that of the top of the funnel – i.e., CVS or Humana rolling out clinics, or even Walmart Health and Optum.The top of the funnel may not be high dollar services, but it has a tremendous influence on where those patients go for all of their other services.Hospitals have to be a lot better at engaging consumers by delivering care on their terms.Guiding principle: Offer quick services to people for something they need to do and removes barriers wherever possible.

Findings from a COVID-19 Vaccine SurveyWhen it comes to determining if the COVID-19 vaccine is safe or not, consumers trust their doctors, health systems, and federal health officials more than anyone else.Hospitals will need to figure out if they require staff to get the vaccine before returning to work?Physicians must be involved in the system's external response to the COVID-19 vaccine and also their internal communications to increase adoption and credibility.Physicians and nurses agree that front-line healthcare workers should be the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. Still, most people said (68%) that they'd rather not be in the first wave.Doctors and nurses are just as hesitant – and for the same reasons as consumers.Consumers worry that the first approved vaccine won't be safe, that it won't be useful, and that politics have compromised the process. Health systems must find a way to cut through the noise and provide specific reasons for why it's safe to receive the vaccination.Groups to Prepare Specific Messaging forThree specific groups were shown in the survey that you need to prepare specific messaging for when it comes to increasing the vaccines adoption:Adopters (yes, I will take the vaccine right away)Skeptics (no, I will wait)Rebels (no, I don't plan to get the vaccine ever)From an external standpoint, prioritize the skeptic's group, but from an internal perspective (like physicians), focus on the rebel group.There needs to be a specific communication plan for each group, especially within the health systems.Telling everyone to get a vaccine is not that simple – it's deeper than that; it is phycological. To evoke change, we need to understand what moves people and incorporate that into our messaging.

Key TakeawaysKey TakeawaysHow to Improve The Financial Experience for the Patient Avera Health is are creating a contemporary "shopping" experience for consumers that involves creating tools on their website, which will display pricing for its patients.They're developing a pricing strategy that optimizes competitor price points and creates a more agile pricing system.Which involves surveying the market to give you a better idea of where to be pricing wise.Pricing and experience are the most important things when it comes to brand reputation.How to Build Consistency into Your Patient ExperienceIt sounds simple and should be a given, but being thoughtful is step one.Pricing has to be consistent; you can't be "off" if you want your consumers to understand how pricing works within your hospital.Consumers ultimately make the decision, and that is now beginning to start before they even walk into the door or meet with a specialist.

Key TakeawaysHow UNC Health is Using Consumer InsightsUNC Health leverages consumer insights by transforming consumer data into meaningful and actionable insights that empower business decisions.The goal is to predict consumers' behaviors, attitudes, and motivations.Thus, they have new capabilities to know consumers well and build an emotional blueprint to understand consumers' emotions that connect their values and desires to UNC Health.Listening is the glue of consumer insights.We cannot forget to leverage this type of insight and data with our employees, as they are brand ambassadors and consumers of care.How to Leverage Consumer Insights During COVID-19 It is critical right now to during COVID-19, to understand how your local consumer feels.Recently, there has been consumer COVID-19 fatigue, and we continuously have to adapt our messaging to ensure it still sends an urgent message in keeping people safe.One adjustment UNC Health has made is through their content marketing efforts in that they are talking with a patient or consumer, versus just talking at them.How Healthcare Has Left Behind Underserved Communities There is a lot of work to do with all the underserved populations, and COVID-19 has put a massive spotlight on this long-term issue.With underserved communities having a more negative outlook on healthcare and the systems that provide this care, hospitals need to find ways to build trust and proactively serve these communities.UNC Health has created a mobile testing unit that deploys to these targeted areas to ensure everyone has access to testing.  

Key ResourcesHANYS Report on Report CardsJackson Health System Care QuoteJackson Health System Quality Data PlatformKey TakeawaysJackson Health's Transparency PhilosophyWhen there is clarity about what public institutions are doing, it allows them to create buy-in and build alliances within the organization.With Jackson Health System being a public hospital, they've embraced the idea of transparency and have made it a part of their DNA as an organization. How to Address TransparencyRather than relying on other sources or reviews, Jackson Health has leveraged public data and display it for all to see on their Quality Data Program site.Being a transparent organization means that you share your health systems' performance, even in areas you are not performing as high as competitors or the national average.This public data is being leveraged to motivate internal teams to improve on the quality of care where needed.Pricing transparency with health systems can be complicated. Still, Jackson Health has created a way to offer free quotes for upcoming surgeries based on your specific insurance coverage to give you an out-the-door price for your procedure.It's been a very successful program and is a great lead source for the organization.  COVID-19's Impact on TransparencyGiven that COVID-19 has forced hospitals to move incredibly quickly, in some organizations, it has created situations where hospitals and payors find themselves disconnected, especially on the payment and coverage side for COVID-19.The Future of TransparencyWe will not be going back to where we were nine months ago, especially as it pertains to virtual care.Even as payors are pulling back reimbursement for virtual visits, consumers have tasted the convenience, and some are keen on never going back to what it was.

Key TakeawaysState of the Presidential RaceBiden has had a lead of 7-10 points in the presidential election since the Summer of 2019, and that trend is currently continuing.The Impact on HealthcareWe came into this year with healthcare as the top issue of the election, but since COVID-19 hit the U.S., it hasn't played as large of a part as many thought it would since the beginning of the year.Though that began to change mid-summer with consumers coming out of lockdown and this week as people begin to participate in early voting.COVID-19 and its Impact on VotingA COVID-19 outbreak has the potential to massively impact that number of voters that show up to vote on Election Day. We already see this happen in Milwaukee, where they have consolidated 180 polling locations to less than 12 due to the COVID-19 crisis.This has the potential to give Democrats an advantage over the Republican Party due to many of their voters utilizing the mail-in ballots, whereas Republicans historically have more heavily relied upon election day voters.Three Things Providers Should Have in Mind, Regardless of Who Wins.There will be another stimulus package, no matter who wins this year's election. Providers must continue to make the case to political leaders to ensure they see the essential role providers have and are playing in the COVID-19 crisis.Surprise billing is here to stay and will begin to resurface post-election or at the latest in 2021.With the COVID-19 vaccine controversy heating up every day, it will take providers playing a larger role for the country to see the vaccine's mass adoption. Here are ten vaccine considerations for hospital communicators.

Key TakeawaysBrand Management at Procter & GambleOne of the core truths at Procter and Gamble (P&G) is that the consumer is boss.The brand manager's responsibility is to fully understand the consumer's needs and how they make decisions.With this knowledge and role, they were the leaders within the organization.Winning the Moments of TruthZero Moment of Truth: refers to the moment when a consumer is in the discovery and awareness stage and is looking to learn more about a product or service (Ex: In healthcare, this could be a consumer looking up online reviews for doctors or hospital).First Moment of Truth: when a consumer is first confronted with the product or service (Ex: Someone visiting a specialist for the first time).Second Moment of Truth: refers to when the consumer experiences a product or service they've purchased. (Ex: What was the experience like after their doctor's visit or surgical procedure and did they want to spread the word to their friends).Brand Management in HealthcareThe role of the brand manager is important, but as many know, this role in hospitals is not seen in the same light as companies like P&G.The place marketers can bring extreme value to the health system is their understanding and knowledge of the consumer to ensure the systems wins the zero moment of truth.The Future of Marketing StructureThe most significant opportunity for marketers is to start shifting their structure to be about programs rather than function – this allows for a much more collaborative approach to tackling problems than our current siloed efforts.

Key TakeawaysDefining Health DisparitiesHealth disparities are present when two populations that, theoretically, should be receiving an equal amount of care are experiencing different outcomes.Differences between these populations are less about race and more about socioeconomic class and zip code.Impact of COVID-19 on Health DisparitiesThe combination of COVID-19 and America's recent state of social unrest has made it challenging to ignore these glaring health disparities in our country.Americans have been living in quarantine for the better part of 2020, creating fewer distractions for those who were not looking at race and social injustice head-on.Handling the vaccine in underserved populationsSince March 2020, Dr. Winn has been meeting with pastors and leaders of faith organizations in Richmond, Virginia every week.These meetings were a springboard for building trust with community leaders and encouraged over 300 people to sign up for vaccine trials. i.    However, recent controversial news coverage on the vaccine led the group to express a lack of trust in the trials, and many are no longer willing to participate.According to Dr. Winn, “the only way you build community trust is drop by drop, but as we've seen, you can lose it in buckets.”Medical MistrustThere are numerous historical cases illustrate why minority groups experience trust issues with the healthcare industry.To move forward past this mistrust, health professionals and systems must admit their faults and acknowledge systemic flaws.Health Disparities in Richmond, VirginiaA “bench to bedside” model is good, but has its shortcomings. If people do not have access to a health system's bedside, they cannot benefit from its bench to bedside care.A more modern, 21st century model focuses on making access to care closer to home. VCU Health has been partnering with community health centers and hospitals to make this happen.Part of every grant approved for the VCU Massey Cancer Center includes a plan for that grant to hire someone from the community they are doing the work in.Dr. Winn is also making an effort to improve internet access for all. Today, a patient's access to healthcare is dependent on his or her access to the virtual world –– a world that, unfortunately, remains woefully unequal.Tactics to Combat Health Disparities for Health Systems Acknowledge that those who find themselves born into underserved populations and neighborhoods are not at fault for their circumstances.Do not disrupt neighborhoods and by arriving uninvited to tell residents what they should and should not be doing. Health care collaborators should ask permission to work in partnership to learn what a healthier life could look like, together.Real change is not about community outreach or engagement programs. It's about true community involvement, where the input of locals helps to refine –– and in many cases, define –– the approach that a health system should take to appropriately meet the needs of underserved populations.

Resources in Today's EpisodeNew York Times Article Key TakeawaysCreating A Marketing PlanDue to the COVID-19 crisis, there was very little margin in the spring and summer months to create a formal plan for this year — much less, for 2021.Despite the No Normal, creating a plan for 2021 is still a useful practice — even if the plan doesn't hold up.When creating a plan, determine your approach to balancing proactive and reactive work in the future. We all experienced the 90-100% reactiveness in March and April. Now, we're experiencing the effects of running at this pace for months. Is that sustainable?Taking Lessons From The Past Into Your Future PlanIt will be essential to take all this experience we've accumulated in COVID-19 and apply our new expertise in the future, should we ever find ourselves in a similar situation again (shutting down elective surgeries, shutting down communities, etc.).Many of the campaigns we launched and practices we employed can be quickly repurposed and reused in a similar future spike — helping our teams to respond more quickly without re-creating the wheel. For example, many marketing departments now have existing assets encouraging the use of masks and urging consumers to practice good hygiene. These are applicable in any future situations where there is widespread viral threat.Marketers were able to move things along very quickly during the peak of COVID-19, and we should look at replicating this speed of decision making within our organizations going forward.An essential aspect of a marketing plan is taking the time to share the results of your efforts. Given how much can happen in a month these days, it can help to share results monthly with leadership instead of the quarterly or even yearly cadence many of us grew accustomed to before COVID-19.Personal PlanningTaking time to step away can be incredibly helpful to recharge and reset goals both personally and professionally.Even a personal plan provides a tether to certainty in a world where uncertainty is everywhere.

 Resources in Today's EpisodeShift Nursing PodcastReviveHealth COVID-19 Comms Resource PageBlog on the No NormalCounty Health RankingsTransforming Care at the BedsideCleveland Clinic “Empathy” Video Key TakeawaysLearnings from an Experienced Health System Marketer Turned Nurse Remembering the patients are your number one priority!Yes, your job is to bring in business to the hospital or health system you work for, but it is truly all about the patients at the end of the day.Have a very firm understanding of what is happening in the community you serve.Use language that your target audience can actually understand, not what the physicians want you to use.Internal comms and marketing all need to be talking — and you can't forget that internal is a key audience too.Engaging Nursing Staff Encourage teamwork: Being in VERY close contact with the internal communication team will help marketing teams know what struggles nurses (and all staff) are facing.Be genuine:Get to know actual nurses, and do from a place of genuine concern for them and their well-being, not just to gather inelegance for your own gain.Ask for feedback: Ask nurses to be part of the conversation when developing materials and ask for feedback. Ask them to the table.Show support: Get leadership to get out on the floor and make an effort to learn about the issues and challenges that the staff are facing.They would rather have proper PPE than a pizza party.Listen to needs: Needs change, and they change quickly during COVID-19.Express empathy: Create a culture of empathy in your materials. Show empathy for each other and patients.Nurse Engagement Strategies  Don't accept turnover as a given.Nurses shouldn't be treated as cost centers.There needs to be a recognition that turnover is costly.It costs less to retain an employee than it does to recruit and employee.Nurses are good at telling when people aren't being genuine and don't want you to waste their time.The messages and feedback nurses provide need to get to the right people to actually make change.Engage nurses in the community, not just your employees.Guidance on How to Boost MoraleAuthenticity is key: Encourage leaders to jump in and support in any way possible, even advocating for nurse's needs. 

Today's EpisodeAxios/Ipsos SurveyPublic Opinion Strategies SurveyThe Harris PollFierce Healthcare ArticleNew York Times Opinion ArticleKey Takeaways MisinformationThe No Normal is rife with conditions that make truth, transparency, and combatting misinformation challenging.An inconsistent response to COVID, disagreement about testing, changing case and death data, uncertain information on therapeutics, and a rush to develop a vaccine all present cracks in the truth and accuracy.As a result, we data such as only 31% of people trusting COVID-19 information coming from the government.More importantly, we have a whole populace that has to work really hard to figure out what is true and trustworthy as they try to live through this period of time.There is some sort of silver lining in this, and it's where hospital and health system marketers come in.While trust in government and institutions has dropped, confidence and trust in hospitals and healthcare providers has increased.76% of Americans surveyed by Public Opinion Strategies hold a favorable view of hospitals.9/10 people said doctors and nurses were trustworthy resources of information, according to a recent Harris poll."The organizations that Americans trust most are those who are in the trenches delivering, which is why you see doctors and nurses as number one," Rob Jekielek, Managing Director with The Harris Poll, told Fierce Healthcare.That puts hospital and health system marketers in a unique position — one that comes with significant responsibility.From our own research, we've seen that consumers trust and have confidence in local healthcare.Some hospitals and health systems are shying away from that trust.This trusted position hospitals/health systems are in comes with considerable responsibility, but it's such an important time to seize.The spread of misinformation across social channels is especially rapid.Hospitals and health systems can use their digital channels and social platforms as megaphones for truth and accuracyThe misinformation volume is only going to get louder over the next several months with new hotspots, therapeutic and vaccine claims (and opposition), and the scoring of political points in the run-up to the election.

Marketing's Role Amid COVID-19When COVID-19 first hit, the first thing we did was focus on the safety of our staff and community.All of our messaging both internal and external informed people of safety measures to take, the seriousness of the virus, etc.Once the cases started to go down the first time, we were one of the first areas to reopen.Our message changed to “it's safe to come back to the hospital” and “Don't delay your needed care.”We also pushed for virtual visits.Today, it's a combination of the two messages as numbers have gone up again.The message is, “Be safe, but don't delay your needed care.”Truly, it's a lot of trial and error.We recognized that we would fail throughout this, but we must fail fast and keep moving forward.While the situation is horrible, these times have caused us to scrap everything and start new.This time has allowed us the opportunity to show leadership our effort's connection to direct revenue.It's a clean slate to test marketing efforts and show why marketing is important for not only times like this, but in all times.Hospital leaders are now turning to marketing to help fill volumes and revenue.This is our chance to show people what we can do. Leveraging Data and ToolsWe've leveraged Salesforce capabilities like other leading brands in other industries I've worked in, which is not typical to a health system or hospital.We've created lead lists for physicians, implemented lead scoring, and leveraged email, in-person visits, and local executives across different campuses.We have a weekly survey that goes out to patients to get real-time and location-relevant patient sentiment about how the public feels about returning to the hospital.They use this data not only to adjust messaging, but to show their physicians so that they can be aware of how to approach each visit in a way that matches the consumer sentiment. Proving ValueThe Piedmont marketing team has leaned into the idea and have proven we are a revenue-generating function, not a cost center or service partner.Now more than ever, if you aren't showing that you drive volumes and revenue, you will only ever be viewed as a cost center.In all other places I've worked (i.e. Southwest), marketing is seen as revenue drivers.In hospitals and health systems, marketing typically looks like a cost center that spits out bio cards and newsletters.But in reality, that's not why we exist. I'm showing our executives what marketing is doing to bring in money.It's rewriting the story of our role. It should be tied to the numbers, not the bio cards (which we'll still get done, but it's not what we are known for). Tying Efforts to DollarsBecause COVID-19 caused a complete stop on all of our prior marketing efforts, we were given a blank slate to tie our efforts to dollars.We have nothing else out in the market. So when we send an email, and there's a drastic jump in volume behavior, we can tie it straight to that.We're in a unique time where we did nothing else that day other than that email, so we know it is what caused the jump in appointments.And if you can prove it multiple times, there's less questioning beyond that and, therefore, more ability to do more without question moving forward.We also share data all the time — so leadership knows what works, but also what doesn't work. Maintaining FocusRight now, we have to be solely focused on things that bring in volume and revenue.We cut 170+ sponsorship deals due to COVID-19. But not one person complained about it. They understood.We have to be good stewards of our patient's money.

Resources in Today's EpisodeYour Consumers are Afraid a blog by Sasha BoghosianAlan Shoebridge LinkedIn Group Therapy PostKey Takeaways Group Therapy while Living in a Pressure Cooker: Ways of coping with the evolving work demands and the circumstances of today's world Acknowledging that we are all just humanHow do we take a step back and do our jobs to support the organizations we work for while also acknowledging how these circumstances are impacting us as individuals?Evolving work pressures and the impact of stressThis is a new situation for all of us – the personal aspects but also professional. Whenever there is a rapid and dramatic change to what we do, it will bring a lot of challenges with it, that alone is disruptive for people within “normal” circumstancesThese changes have resulted in staff redeployments and changing how we think about doing our work along with the ongoing need to adaptSignificant shifts in the nature of roles that are typically focused on in-person relationships/events. If digital wasn't IT before all of this, then it is nowWe are being asked to do more with less. All while trying to reframe these challenges into an opportunityWe want to show up and deliver given all of the massive challenges that the world is facing, but on top of all of that pressure we are also dealing with our lives outside of the “office”How can we manage and support our team and co-workers?Openness about how we are doing and speaking to it regularly – not carrying those feelings around silently is huge right now. Creating a space to have open conversations about how you are doing with friends and familyCreating these spaces is a crucial part of a leader's work – we can't get through these challenges without an engaged workforceThis is an ultra-marathon, and we are only halfway in. There is much further to go, and we have to care for one another to get there — play the long game hereTeam Support Ideas:Intentionally set up a time to hear how employees are doing from a human to human point of viewWeekly conversations that have nothing to do with work — getting the team to build personal connections has bonded them in ways that we have never seen beforeLook to see what resources psychology departments are offeringSchedule a 30-minute mindful meditation block on everyone's calendarSchedule regular town hall meetings to discuss timely topicsProviding personal time off or leave hours that are COVID specificInstituted a no lay off policy to help settle anxietiesEnsure that your team has the resources they need to be successful — do not assume everyone is playing on the same levelExample: stable internet access or children at home

Resources in Today's EpisodeMisinformation Statement: Kati Everett, Chief Communications Officer at Novant HealthArticle: Cue the debunking: Two California doctors go viral with dubious COVID test conclusions Article: Trump's New Favorite COVID Doctor Believes in Alien DNA, Demon Sperm, and HydroxychloroquineArticle: An Elite Group Of Scientists Tried To Warn Trump Against Lockdowns In MarchKey Takeaways The Situation – Rogue docs First, let's defineWe're not talking about physicians publicizing PPE shortages.We're not talking about the ED doctor suing for unreasonably lowering safety standards after being fired.Those are more on the labor side of issues management.A "rogue doctor" hits two kinds of extreme:They are someone who has an extreme or fringe health view.And they are someone who uses an extreme level of communication — such as press conferences on the steps of the Capitol.Rouge doctors discredit the seriousness of COVID-19, talking about kids not being susceptible to it, disregarding masks, etc.This is a risk because these doctors carry your health system name and are stating things that are potential liabilities, and it puts your name on misinformation.Public ExamplesThe original rogue doctors – two urgent care doctors went viral in April with video on Facebook claiming pandemic is a political hoax and overblown. They received 4.3 million views on YouTube, and Elon Musk tweeted, "Docs make good points."The Houston doctor who said hydroxychloroquine is a cure and that you don't need masks from the steps of Capitol.A leading scientist from one of the top AMCs in the country rallied a group of peers to convince President Trump back in the spring that coronavirus was overblown, not enough of a threat, and to not lock down the U.S. — with no credible data.Other examples we're seeing:Rogue doctors are showing up at school board meetings advocating for reopening with fringe claims.Rogue doctors are holding press conferences, sometimes from a hospital's property.Rogue doctors are on TV, social media, etc.Addressing Rogue Doctors from a Communications PerspectiveDo it in a way that you're not taking on the physician, but the data and science — use a credible clinician like a Chief Medical Officer, infectious disease expert, or Chief Nursing Officer to deliver the message, not a CEO or communications member.There's a continued obligation for systems to be the arbiters of truth — clinicians have had incredibly high trust scores during COVID-19.When public safety is involved, health systems have an obligation to use this trust clout to counter growing conversations related to misinformation or false viewpoints.Speaking out also doesn't just have to be just when physicians are going rogue, it can be related to conversations happening within your communities about how schools should go back, mask wearing, etc.Legal OptionsDepending on the situation, rogue doctors represent, at best, a headache for system leaders, and at worst, a real risk to their brand reputation.We spoke with Dan Higgins, partner at Dentons, the world's largest law firm, to identify what options systems might have to address physicians that exacerbate the spread of misinformation.Except for when a health system directly employs physicians, there are limited recourse options, given physicians' rights to share their medical opinion with patients and the public.However, if there is significant conversation surrounding a physician, a health system can counter a negative message with one of its own.Point to the facts and science in these situations, ideally leveraging the Chief Medical Officer for a doctor-to-doctor comparison to the public.If the affiliated physician uses a logo or the health system's platform without permission, the health system can ask for the physician to retract its statement.When an employed physician is involved, there are additional steps a health system can weigh.Health systems should consider proactively drafting a high-level policy focused on patient precautions for staying safe and well.The system can note that it wants to guide the strategy for the organization's COVID-19 communications, and that while they respect the first amendment and the physician/patient relationship, no one except those authorized by the health system should speak on behalf of the health system in relation to COVID-19.This restricts physicians from any use of the health system's logo without consent. If there is any violation of this policy, the health system has the option to take employment action.Leaders Have a Voice and Have a ResponsibilityWith all of this said, health systems are needed and expected to be the voice of truth — continuing to focus on the facts — even if that lands them in hot water with policymakers and community members.Given their position, health systems have a societal obligation to correct any misinformation that may be spreading in their communities.Beware of the shaming and guilt language in your communications. Consumers are looking for us to be a stable, objective resource of facts and truth.

Scott's Background:Scott: spent 20 years at various agencies working for top brands.After a clinically fine but experientially horrible period of time working through medical treatments and therapies for his wife, he turned his passion for the consumer experience towards providers and payors.His observation of the experience was there was nothing about it that was built for his wife — significant contrast from the large companies he worked for that obsessed over the consumer experience.Raghu's background:Having grown up in a country and a time in a culture where medical care was often part of an intergenerational relationship with your local general practitioner, the systemized medicine and care delivery system in the U.S. was a big surprise.We, as a nation have seemed to have simultaneously industrialized the care process while depersonalizing the experience.He was attracted to and still carries the notion that the strength of the healthcare system can be harnessed by the value of the strength between such a noble calling and we the people.The Vision for M Health FairviewM Health Fairview is a relatively new (about a year and a half old) joint venture between the University of Minnesota and Fairview Health Services.While the two had been partnering together in various forms for years, they have never been as closely tied as they are now.When Scott was hired at the point of the joint venture, he got three clear mandates from the CEO and his partner:To launch the M Health Fairview brand and make it meaningful to employees and the market.Get us ready to compete for consumers in a consumer-driven health economy.Design customer experiences that are going to help us attract and keep a disproportionate share of customers.The first thing he did was take 90 days to observe, assess, and collect data.What he saw was that he had a lot of nice, well-intended people but had none of the skills and capabilities that they were going to need to compete in what he calls a modern economy.The modern economy, or consumer economy, right now is on demand. You can get what you want, when you want it, where you want it, how you want it.The original team was not able to make this happen at the speed it would need to happen.He also saw the chasm that he so often found in his consulting, between marketing, design, and IT.So together, they are creating a Customer Integration Studio.A place where they can design and develop new experiences.Experiences are anything that touches the consumer, such as services, content, and conversations.Similar to an Agile Studio: imagine technology sitting with marketers sitting with designers sitting with strategists, etc.They took this solution to the CEO, who then asked, “how will you pay for that”?He assessed the data and saw that none of their activities up until that point were pointing to any priorities for the health systems.So they cut as many of those activities as possible and streamlined the rest, which included downsizing.They then formed a new web of core staff with outsourced relationships with digital development providers.They are now five sprints into a new website.One sprint into a new mobile app going live in the fall.And have completed an automated marketing platform where internal staff can write their own brochures and assets in the correct branded templates and order them on-demand.They realized the need to transition from analog to digital to achieve the desired experience for a large and actively operating organization. Which required three things:Fundamentally raising the digital quotient in the organization from the boardroom to the front line.Recognizing the business and stability around profitable and critical care should be the result of the differentiated experience that they engineer.Creating the infrastructure to make all this happen.A shift in goals.At the beginning of 2020, they were clear on a small set of priorities:Two service lines: oncology and neuroscience.Getting our digital front door fixed.That was it. Everything was secondary.We can't be all things to all people. If you do everything, you're doing nothing.Today, they have focused their dollars exclusively on the front door and, of course, what needs to happen for COVID-19.They have a pod working on the site.A pod working on the app.And a pod doing the heavy lifting of COVID.COVID-19 manifested the No NormalThree factors tend to triangulate an industry is in transformation:You have technical competency: new ways of delivering care.You have cultural norms: new expectations.Then you have regulation: regulatory authorities coming in and bringing reimbursement parity and reducing some of the barriers.What COVID-19 essentially did for consumers is create a new expectation.Many of the things we were going to implement in a year or two happened now because of COVID-19, so we have accelerated use and technology.The revolution of our IT department has been stunning to watch.The infrastructure changes that had two-year timelines changed to days, weeks, and months.They have figure out how to scale quickly and be less gentle with change than they were in the past.Virtual CareThere's an underestimation of the pandora's box we have opened with virtual care because of COVID-19. Health systems must understand that people aren't going to want to go back to the way things were.A quote from M Health Fairview's CEO on Scott's desk reads…” We are not going back to normal.”They will be converting their business to virtual as much as they can.Because the consumers want it, and they can make it even more convenient.Because running clinics cost a lot of money, bricks and mortar is a lot to maintain. And the secret that no one is talking about right now is that most of the health systems in this country are in real financial trouble. The structure of cost and reimbursement is not sustainable. We fundamentally have to look at our cost structure differently than in the past.

Resurgence In CaliforniaCalifornia is experiencing a new resurgence of COVID-19 in their hospitals.More people are on ventilators and in the ICU than ever before.A main contributor to this resurgence is that not enough people are sticking to the mask and social distance guidelines. Another obstacle for California is the number of counties within the state.Counties started to open up on a regional basis.So, you can be in one county and go to the gym and restaurants, but in the next county over, it is completely closed down.Lastly, people are starting to experience cabin fever and are beginning to travel freely and frequently to open counties.The Latest on COVID-19 TestingStanford has created a centralized testing system that allows their operations to run smoothly.They also opened a new hospital to combat COVID-19, and turned their ED into a testing site as well.Stanford is now able to test over 20,000 people per day and get results back between two hours and two days – which is significantly faster than the national average. Though Stanford has international patients, they have focused a lot of their marketing communications efforts on local and regional markets.Stanford has focused on being a credible source for their local are.Their goal is that the community can come to them for information that they know they can trust. Another standard that Stanford keeps is constantly testing employees as a part of taking all the necessary precautions to keep both patients and employees safe.That has been one of the most important measures taken in the pandemic. 

Background to the Facebook BoycottInitially, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook came across as noncommittal.They have since committed to adding more context to problematic political posts, and has broadened its definition of hate speech.Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg met with the Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, and Color of Change.The groups were disappointed with the outcome of the meeting — wanting more to be done.To Join or Not to Join What's the reach and impact of pausing Facebook in your marketing efforts? Your media plan is essential to reach as many people as possible.70% of adults in the U.S. are Facebook users.When you start looking into making up for the incremental reach that's being lost by moving away from Facebook, you have to start looking to other larger media channels like print, TV, and radio, which have a high out-of-pocket cost.What do you think brands or hospitals and health systems specifically need to consider if they're going to decide to join this boycott? The number one consideration of your decision needs to be about the authenticity of your brand.What are your values and practices? Those are the things that will persist beyond just this month and that you should be living by.What are the risks of joining the boycott? Could hospitals and health systems make a change in the way Facebook operates? The first thing you need to look at is the structure of their leadership.It's unique versus what we would see from any other company.The operation is entirely led by Mark Zuckerberg, he exercises complete voting control over the company, and shareholders can't remove him.This complicates the entirety of the boycott campaign.Nearly a thousand total advertisers have joined this boycott.Forty of those fall into their top 100 advertisers in terms of their yearly ad spend.Even if all 100 of their top advertisers pulled out, it would only account for about 6% of Facebook's advertising spend.As much as Facebook needs the advertisers, we as advertisers need Facebook a lot more.What should we do to avoid being reactive in a situation like this? Consumers and patients are looking for certainty and someone to trust.The voice of hospitals and health systems is more critical than ever to keep that trust and have the ability to put out future messages.What if you have joined or are planning to participate but are still trying to reach people and drive ROI? This should be addressed on a campaign by campaign basis.But if you are going to boycott, I would suggest taking the hit when it comes to losing the Facebook reach.Advertisers are using this boycott as a way to pressure Facebook into giving more control of the platform.Traditionally, Facebook will not allow many things that would be acceptable with most other advertisers.They don't allow third-party audits on their site, whereas typically, when you run a digital campaign, you can have a third-party source, and they can confirm that your ads are running as promised.Corporate Activism Corporations are being forced to take a stance on some issues.Hospitals and health systems are going to be at the center of that for two reasons:Many issues that we're talking about today are related to health.Whether you view yourself as a leader or not, most health systems are one of the biggest employers in their region and to have top-line revenues is a big deal even if your margins are slim.Preparing for the Roll-out of a Vaccine There may need to be a process or an index that you can use to say what you know, what your decision making process was, and how you're going to help our most vulnerable.It needs to be aligned with what you've decided as your company mission and point of view.We need to navigate this together with our clients and make sure that we have a united front.It's critical to think of your internal team's hearts and minds when creating your organization's point of view.

Key TakeawaysTravel Industry Lessons After 9/11Security changes were made behind the scenes and gradually travel resumed.It wasn't until after the financial crisis of 2008 that the airline industry started to recover.A couple of lessons we learned from this:We're going to see substantial financial impacts across the healthcare industry.We could see the healthcare industry restructuring as small health systems start to merge with large systems.We have to challenge our pre-COVID-19 thinking and be nimble moving forward.We're working with United on a program called Clean+ to help build traveler's confidence in flying again.COVID-19 Response We first saw patients with COVID-19 in Abu Dhabi, so we initiated our incident command structure that includes all of our locations around the world.We started planning in early January by looking at clinical processes and surge capacities as well as gathering stockpiles of PPE.Then, the focus was setting up drive-through testing, building surge capacity, and finally, recovery and reopening.Now we're looking at trying to get back to our pre-COVID-19 numbers while being prepared for flare-ups.Our digital platforms have had a significant impact on reaching patients and communities all over the world.Since March 13, we've done 8,000 social media posts.Our website has had 120 million sessions so far this year.We're sending a million emails a week.Recovery Mode In response to the resistance for people to return for routine care:We've downsized our outpatient spaces to allow for social distancing.We're running at 75% capacity but making it up through virtual visits.We're doing thermal screenings and continuing to enforce mask-wearing.We're encouraging our clinical departments to extend hours and provide virtual options to ensure maximum flexibility.We have also created predictive models, which are looking good 30 days from now.Virtual Care The physician community and health systems around the country and world have undoubtedly adjusted to virtual visits.It's only going to get better and smoother as technology advances.We're looking forward to remote monitoring tools that can send reliable data to physicians and integrate with health records.If we do it right, we should be the big winners in virtual health.Consumers will want to come to Cleveland Clinic for virtual health and not a third party, one-off visit.What No One is Talking About (But Should)Elevating your internal communications.We've learned that through COVID-19, our internal communications were a guide throughout this process.Our caregivers have opened 3.3 million of our internal emails since March.We have an 83% open rate with emails from our CEO.We've created 25 videos with messages from our CEO.Regulatory areas that need to be addressed.Our supply chains are predominantly outside the United States.The swabs we needed for COVID-19 testing were made in Italy at the height of the COVID-19.Our masks and gowns come primarily from China.Acute Home HealthcareOne of our goals as a health system is to reduce the length of the patient's stay.Infection rates are lower when we can get people home, so we are very focused on that.We have a home health division at Cleveland Clinic, and it's an integrated part of the care that our institutes provide.We do it for chronic diseases, especially working with EMS teams that go to people's homes to try and keep chronic disease patients out of the hospital.Reimbursements for Virtual Visits From a regulatory perspective, it needs to be one of our highest priorities.We're going to continue to see virtual visits move forward now that we have had such a huge trial period for them.Those discussions take place on a state-by-state and insurer-by-insurer basis except for Medicare, but I think you have to give CMS and the government credit that they opened that up very quickly.

Key Resources Mentioned in Today's EpisodeReviveHealth Consumer Survey ReportNew York Hospital Systems Losing $450M/Month via Apple NewsNew York Hospital Systems Losing $450M/Month via WSJBlog Post by ReviveHealth's CEO on Cares ActKey TakeAwaysPotential second wave of COVID -19A second wave of COVID-19 could be possible for late fall and early winter.We've used multiple sources to gather data on a potential second wave. Those sources are: University of Washington's model, conversations from Dr. Fauci and Bill gates, the New York Times, and Northwestern's sociology department.Scenario planningWe need to quickly encourage people to come back to hospitals when it's deemed appropriate so hospitals can serve the pent up demand for appointments/surgeries. Health system marketers will need to make people feel comfortable about coming back to the hospitals for those elective surgeries, whether it be through adding separate entrances or other ways to make patients feel safe.Another difficult conversation that will need to be addressed by health systems is which of its patients will need to be cared for first.How will this affect us when it's over?There's been a slight decrease in public trust64% of Americans were not willing to allow others to get sick to enable the country to reopen.

Key Resources Mentioned in Today's EpisodeTurbine LabsNurses Share Coronavirus Stories Anonymously in an Online DocumentBrandon Edwards, CEO of ReviveHealth's Blog PostKey Takeaways from Today's Episode:Communicating internally about increasing flex time and the reduction of physician compensation is becoming a likely possibility, and getting ahead of these rumors is essential for your organization.In a specific example, email open rates for internal communication with physicians was about 70%, but when they looked at all staff, it was closer to 25% open rate. It's critical to find channels that will ensure the hospital staff sees this content.Create a place that allows physicians to ask questions to leadership and get answers.Being ready to respond to attacks from unions quickly will be very necessary.  Where possible, back up your messages with facts and data.Health systems need to be thinking about how their staff and move beyond thank yous. The front line staff inside a health system will have secondary trauma after this pandemic and will need our help during and after this crisis.Marketing and communication leaders need to put a lot of effort, thought, and resources into creating an ongoing campaign that is all about supporting their front line staff.If your health system has a magazine that you send out to your community, it's essential to update this content to make it relevant to the COVID-19 crisis. Which this can be a challenge given magazine timeframes, but a 4-page magazine that's relevant to the crisis is way more effective than continuing to push an outdated 16-page magazine that promotes your knee replacement surgery.

On this episode of Perspectives on Health and Tech, we are joined by Brian Eastwood, a content strategist at ReviveHealth, a full-service agency focused on the intersection of health care delivery, finance and innovation. Brian discusses how technology can improve engagement for providers and patients alike.

The Healthcare Marketing Underground is ReviveHealth’s weekly podcast where we riff and rant on hot topics in healthcare marketing. Listen in!

Join Chris Bevolo, Chris Boyer, and special guest Lindsay Resnick ([who recently joined ReviveHealth][1]) for a special SHSMD edition of the podcast. You'll hear more about Lindsay's background before the gang dives deep into 2016's SHSMD Connections — tips and tricks for attendees on how to get the most out of the conference.

This week, Chris Boyer is joined by Jared Usrey, Creative Technologist, and Libby Werner, Account Supervisor, at ReviveHealth to discuss some of the latest trends in digital and personalized marketing. From the lack of trust that consumers have in sharing health data with Apple and Google, to patients not having a problem merging their social media accounts with their medical records, it’s clear that the marketing landscape is changing dramatically. Libby, Jared and Chris analyze the challenges from both a patient and a healthcare professional angle. They end the podcast with a discussion of their favorite Thanksgiving dish. A must listen!

In a moment of self-realization, Chris Bevolo kicks off the podcast this week revealing his different online and offline buying behaviors. Joined by Jackie Olson, and first-time guest Amy Negrete, vice president of content strategy at ReviveHealth, the topic of conversation centers on “What a Great Digital Customer Experience Actually Looks Like” from the Harvard Business Review. The trio dives into the disconnect between what retailers offer in the digital versus the physical space, and ultimately what the consumer is looking for when integrating the two. How can this hot topic be applied to consumerism in healthcare and how can the healthcare sphere work to pioneer this divide? Fill out the survey at the end of your receipt to find out. Just kidding, all you have to do is hit play!

Chris Bevolo is joined this week by Dana Weymouth and our own Kate Caverno, senior account executive, and design intern Megan Shircel. After revealing the ingredients in ReviveHealth's custom cocktail, The Phoenix, the conversation turns to talking savvy shoppers and the myth of the ‘macho man’ in today’s healthcare world. The quad delves into how today’s society tends to be rather picky and choosey about the benefits and services they receive from healthcare providers while also debating who’s making these decisions at the end of the day. The discussion kicks off with a focus on how mainstream media is quick to take hot topics in healthcare and share them with the masses. Tune in to hear what they have to say about the glorified "history-making" topic referred to as consumerism, more specifically, patient consumerism, and what it means to us.

Speculating why Apple is allowing ad blocking software with its iOS 9 release, Chris Bevolo, Chris Boyer, and Dana Weymouth are joined this week by ReviveHealth’s Jared Usrey. With greats insights on how businesses are going to have to fight back against apps like Peace, Purify, and Crystal, the team is left crying out for ad neutrality and justice for all!! With the the crowd roaring, Boyer transitions the conversation to the relationship between sports and healthcare. Tune in to listen as they discuss how hospitals are using sports sponsorships to move from "sick care" to "health care."

This week Chris Bevolo and Chris Boyer are joined by Bethany Doty, Senior Account Executive at ReviveHealth and a long-awaited appearance on the Podcast. Bethany has been a working in the Minnesota office for a few months and has been an active listener. The crew starts the show discussing college and pro rivalries but then launch into a deeper conversations on the recent Payor mergers of Aetna, Cigna and the impact this might have on hospital systems. Based on a series of three blog posts featured on the ReviveHealth blog http://blog.thinkrevivehealth.com/newsroom the team discusses important takeaways healthcare marketers can take in managed care negotiations. Then they talk through another article on the alarming trend of out-of-network costs for Urgent care visits and price transparency laws throughout the US aimed to help consumers have a better understand of their healthcare bill.

This week Chris Bevolo, Adam Meyer, and Chris Boyer are joined by a very special guest: Jessica Blackburn, part of the marketing team at ReviveHealth. They launch into an in-depth conversation about personalized marketing, and how organizations are starting to embrace the use of marketing automation and CRM in developing a personal way to engage their audiences. Then, they discuss a variety of methods and practices involved with keeping up-to-date and current – with marketing, as well as other life hacks. In between this all, Chris Bevolo adeptly manages to take care of a crisis at home and teach us about how to parent effectively.

This week, Chris Bevolo is joined by ReviveHealth’s Chris Boyer and Dana Weymouth to discuss profit sharing for hospitals, Jargonpalooza and video games instead of Ritalin.

This week, Chris Bevolo and Adam Meyer are joined by ReviveHealth’s newest member Chris Boyer and Dana Weymouth to discuss Impression-Based Advertising, the State of News Media and just because Game of Thrones. This Episode is full of funny moments and fun loving banter.

This week, Chris and Adam are joined by ReviveHealth’s own Dana Weymouth to discuss the use of quality and price information in making healthcare decisions.

This week, Chris and Adam are joined by none other than Chris Boyer, ReviveHealth’s new Senior Vice President of Digital.

This week, the AHMB, along with special guest, Dana Weymouth from ReviveHealth, talk about a new brand movement for MN, jaywalking, fav podcasts and more.

This special episode is part of a series recorded live at the 2014 SHSMD conference in San Diego. In this segment we speak with the crew from ReviveHealth, based in Nashville, Santa Barbara and Minneapolis.

This week, Chris Bevolo sits down with ReviveHealth CEO, Brandon Edwards, and CMO Kriste Goad to discuss ReviveHealth’s acquisition of Interval.