Over the years, Interval has synthesized important healthcare marketing trends through in-depth position papers, such as our ground-breaking "First Impression Study" that helped show the power of the patient experience. Our first paper, "The Case for Unified Branding in Hospitals & Healthcare Systems" is still the most cited and downloaded paper, more than 8 years after it was first published.

This 24-page publication is intended to help hospitals and health care systems understand the potential for increased name recognition, managed cost-savings and improved patient clarity that can be achieved when all elements of an organization are consistently branded.

Now more than ever, healthcare leaders are demanding results for their organization’s marketing and branding efforts. This paper provides a primer for measuring marketing performance for hospitals and health systems.

A safe estimate might be that between 5 and 10% of hospitals are in a position to embrace branding at its deepest and most powerful levels. But what about healthcare marketers who believe in the value of branding?

Healthcare consumers are becoming more empowered every day, thanks to their access to information, the growing choices they’re presented within the market, and the spread of consumer-driven health plans. With more and more consumers spending more and more of their own money through HSAs, HRAs and other high-deductible plans, they will become even more demanding.

In 2004, we concluded the first-ever study of patient experience at the top 11 heart centers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. The findings are available in a report titled Our First Impression: A Study of the Patient Experience at Twin Cities Heart Centers.