Hospital marketers: Cure ‘I need a brochure’ syndrome

It’s a common scenario that plays out in health care marketing departments across the country. The belief that a monumental problem can be solved by introducing a single tactical element—a brochure, a billboard, a radio campaign—you name it. This sounds a lot like the patient who asks for a prescription without being seen by the doctor.

Here are some steps to consider before taking this all-too-familiar order.

Develop a diagnosis

Before you begin rocking back and forth in the fetal position (again), do what doctors do—ask questions to help you reach a diagnosis and review the research.

• Is growing the hangnail clinic part of the hospital’s strategic plan?
• What is the hangnail clinic’s time-to-next appointment? If it’s a staggering six months out, your hospital should consider hiring additional staff to support patient volumes. If it’s less than two weeks, you may be able to make a case for additional promotion.
• Are patients satisfied? A brochure can’t fix a bad patient experience. In fact, it might even make it worse. Review the hangnail clinic’s patient satisfaction scores to make sure they’re aligned with your hospital’s patient experience goals.

Recommend a treatment

After determining what you’re trying to achieve and how you want to achieve it, you can recommend a treatment.

Growing the hangnail clinic appears to be part of the hospital’s strategic plan. The time-to-next appointment is less than two weeks. Patient satisfaction scores are blowing the roof off the hospital. Now what?

Determine measureable objectives and consider developing a marketing/communications plan for the hangnail clinic. This may include a brochure. It may not. It’s up to you as the marketing professional to recommend the most effective strategies and tactics.

Schedule a follow-up appointment

So, what if things aren’t looking so good for the hangnail clinic? Would a doctor prescribe an anti-depressant to someone who isn’t depressed? Work with your internal client to help understand how your marketing department makes decisions and promise to schedule a follow-up appointment in six months.

Stephanie Hungerford is health care account supervisor at Core Creative.