Interval client launches new online wellness campaign
On August 15, new Interval client Inova Health System (Fairfax, VA) launched “FitFor50,” a new online wellness campaign. The campaign features former Washington Redskins great Darrell Green as a passionate spokesperson, and provides a 50-day wellness program through the FitFor50.org website. The online experience includes videos, tips from Darrell and Inova physicians, wellness content, and an interactive Wellness Playbook, which allows registered users to log their own wellness goals and update their personal progress. Interval designed the FitFor50.org website and Wellness Playbook.
“The concept of creating an online community based on wellness is a natural extension of Inova Health System’s branding promise,” says Chris Boyer, Senior Manager of Digital Communications for Inova Health System. “The FitFor50 site also integrates a number of social media platforms, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We’ve made an effort to ensure users of the site can interact with the content in ways they are most comfortable.”
According to Boyer, the FitFor50 website had more than 6,000 unique visitors within the first 10 days of the campaign, and more than 2,000 people had registered for the Wellness Playbook
“This is a terrific example of a health system using health and wellness to engage consumers and build its brand,” said Interval president Chris Bevolo. “Rather than the typical approach of touting specialties or technologies that many consumers don’t need or can’t relate to, wellness is actually relevant to most people, and Inova has done an amazing job of leveraging wellness to connect with those in its market.”
Gettin’ paid
Here’s the “How to Deal With a Leadership Challenge Tip of the Week.” We’ve heard this one a number of times over the years, but it’s become more frequent recently, and it goes a little something like this:
“Why should we invest in XYZ? We don’t get paid for that.”
This often comes from a CEO or CFO of a hospital, and what they mean is that whatever it is your asking them to invest in, the organization doesn’t get reimbursed for it. For example, we’ve heard this used in regards to investing in a better patient experience. One CFO we know said the following during planning for a major expansion:
“Why do we need to spend so much on patient rooms? We could just stick them in the hall and we’d get paid the same.”
Read More
Healthcare branding and the law of expectations
The other day, I took my daughter to the dermatologist for a follow-up treatment for a minor skin ailment, her fourth visit. Her mom had taken her on the previous trips and had warned me that it could take awhile. Not the treatment, which included a quick evaluation by the doctor and a five-minute spray application. The wait.
The entire visit took an hour from start to finish, almost all of it waiting. “How could a dermatology practice afford such poor service?” I thought, especially given the multitude of options available to us in our area and the commodity level of care we needed. Read More
Truth #4: If you want to know what will work in healthcare marketing, don’t ask your customers
The Truths We Hold Self-Evident: Fourth in a Series
A few years back, we worked with a large dental practice that wanted to stand out in the market. In the initial meeting, we discovered management believed their best bet was to promote the expertise of their dentists, a decision based primarily on the results of an annual survey that showed respondents ranked “skill of my dentist” number one from a list of values they thought important when choosing dental care. Read More
More examples of how pricing is creeping into hc encounters
Yesterday, I had two experiences related to pricing in healthcare I’d never encountered before. First, I met with a nurse practitioner as part of my regular Type II diabetes follow-up. Things are progressing to the point where I might need to consider Insulin, and so she was outlining the different types of Insulin available and how they are used. In each case, she started with giving a general price point. For example, “Now this version, which is also fairly expensive, is used in these circumstances.” After three or four of these descriptions, I was intrigued enough to stop and ask: Read More
Newspaper strikes back – oh, and it’s a great healthcare story
Perhaps the traditional media powers read Adam’s last blog post “Bye bye traditional media” and decided to launch a counter-strike. In this Sunday’s Star Tribune, the front page features a story by healthcare reporter Chen May Yee on new tactics by hospitals to collect payment for some procedures ahead of time. Here’s the counter-strike: the article, “Hospitals forced to become bill collectors,” is only available in the print edition of the paper. There is a teaser online, and I imagine at some point down the road (a few days? a week?) the story will end up on their web site. But for now, unless you pick up the paper itself, you’ll have to wait.
So there are two blog posts in one here: Read More
Be there or be…healthy
Is it possible that the intense feeling you had when you were a student – the “be in your chair when class starts” mentality – is forcing people to make a choice between being healthy or not? As a recent article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press points out, that might be the case. Read More
Finding the bad in the good
For years, we’ve been advocating for the power of a superior patient experience in building a leading hospital brand. Probably the most difficult component of that experience to change is customer service and the interaction of staff with patients. The positive connections physicians, nurses and staff can make with patients so often is the penultimate piece of the experience, and a caring encounter or warm gesture will override so many other negatives. But of course, the flip side is also true, and I had an experience this week that illustrates how difficult it can be for hospital providers to deliver a consistently positive service experience. Read More
We’re not going to say we told you so, but…
Ahh, sweet validation. For years, we’ve been advocating for enhanced patient experiences as a leading way to gain a competitive edge in the healthcare provider market. We’ve done studies. We’ve printed papers. We’ve spoken at conferences. We’ve blogged and twittered, ranted and raved. Read More
Wild West is ghost town, for now…
Throughout 2008, we’ve been talking about the ever-increasing resources available to patients to inform better healthcare decisions. (Check out our paper “Pointing the Way” issued in February.) We like to use the “Wild West” metaphor to describe all the online ratings sites, patient feedback forums and hospital comparison options. Read More