Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

17 PATIENT & CAREGIVER EXPERIENCE 'Focus on creating great experiences': How healthcare marketing is evolving By Bari Faye Dean and Ashleigh Hollowell I n rural areas, where hospitals are shuttering or are no longer offering care such as labor and delivery, patients have no choice but to travel for healthcare. However, in and around big cities, the situation is the opposite: competition between hospitals to attract patients is fierce. In Northern New Jersey, a heavily populated region just over the bridges from New York City, there is no shortage of hospitals for patients to choose from, so it is incumbent upon healthcare systems to be at the top of their marketing game. Mike Maron, president and CEO of Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, N.J., told Becker's his hospital's marketing strategy begins long before a patient steps into the building. A decade ago, Holy Name scooped up four digital billboards and every rotation on those billboards in a highly trafficked area and has been using them to go beyond traditional marketing messaging. When people are stuck in their cars waiting for traffic to move, the billboards are easy attention grabbers. "We believe that we're part of the community — we're an integral part of the community. Trust is critical and if you want human beings to trust you, you can't act as an organization; you have to act more human," Mr. Maron said. "We use the billboards to express our humanity as an organization. We want to remind people that we are part of the community just like they are. We're not just here pushing our services." Of course, sometimes the billboards advertise the medical center's specialties, a new initiative or a public service announcement. Even with a crackerjack marketing team, Mr. Maron said the patient experience begins at the top, and that is why he keeps an eye on hospital messaging — always quick to use the billboards to cheer on the community's successes. For example, during the 2023 NCAA tournament, Teaneck-based Fairleigh Dickinson University — a No. 16 seed — beat No. 1-seeded Purdue University, based in West Lafayette, Ind. Two of Holy Name's digital billboards boasted about the hometown team's Cinderella story. "We were excited to be able to congratulate Fairleigh Dickinson and to acknowledge the team's great success," Mr. Maron said. "e team's success is our community's success, too." More than messaging Many healthcare systems around the country completed major marketing rebrands since the beginning of the pandemic. Becker's talked with hospitals leaders all across the country and found, far and wide, marketing messaging that is patient-centered and safety- focused works. ree examples are Saint Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., Oaklawn Hospital in Marshall, Mich., and Hartford Healthcare in Connecticut. At Saint Peter's, the goal of "providing service excellence throughout a patient's journey is threaded" throughout the healthcare system's marketing messaging, according to Michelle Lazzarotti, the organization's senior director of marketing. "Our 'One Focus' themed campaign demonstrates our advocacy for our patients, always striving for clinical quality and patient safety and treating the entire person — mind, body and spirit — with the highest level of skill and compassion," she said. Oaklawn's marketing coordinator, Sara Jeffery, said her team's strategy also puts patients first. "Our tagline is 'Real People. Real Care' because we pride ourselves on putting our patients first. Our patients won't feel like just a number here." Hartford HealthCare's new brand campaign is called "Start Here," and it encourages consumers to do just that. "e campaign uses vibrant visuals and a bold The hidden penalty of remote work By Mackenzie Bean M any U.S. workers have wholeheartedly embraced the flexibility and freedom of working from home, but new research suggests there may be a hidden downside to remote work, The New York Times reported April 24. Remote workers may receive less feedback from their superiors compared to those in an office setting, according to a working paper from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the University of Iowa in Iowa City and Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Economists studied the performance of engineers at a large technology company. They found senior engineers were more productive with remote work, but junior engineers received less feedback on their code and some were more likely to quit. "We find a now-versus-later trade-off associated with remote work," Emma Harrington, PhD, an economist at the University of Iowa, told the Times. "Particularly for junior engineers who are new to this particular firm, and younger engineers, they receive less feedback from their senior colleagues when they're remote." This trend was especially prominent among female engineers, the economists found. The research is one of the first major studies to suggest a professional consequence of working from home, the Times said. Though the findings are preliminary and not broadly applicable, researchers said they highlight the importance of in-office interactions in early-career development. n

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