All Entries in the "Physician relations" Category

Physician Strategies Summit: Medical Staff Development Can’t Wait

What's a trip to Phoenix without seeing a cow skull in a driveway?

On Tuesday, the last day of the summit, I attended “Medical Staff Development: Planning for Hospital and Community Needs.” Michael Arvin, senior vice president and chief development office for Methodist Health System, gave an interesting presentation on how Dallas economic conditions prompted the health system to draft a three-year strategic plan and focus on medical staff development to meet those goals.

Because Texas is among the most uninsured states and has a very small Medicaid program, hospitals take on the brunt of the cost—Methodist alone paid $82 million in uncompensated care in 2008. It realized the patient revenue to uncompensated care ratio was unsustainable, so it created a three-year plan to grow marketshare, expand its service area, and develop partnering models. It worked, and Methodist opened five new facilities since 2006 and expanded into several underserved communities.

And that wraps up my coverage of the 2010 Physician Strategies Summit. For more information about “Physician Onboarding: Recruiting for Retention” check out my column “Successful Physician Retention Must Start During Recruitment.”

Physician Strategies Summit: It’s All About Measurement and Tracking

A cacti-covered hillside and some Arizona sunshine.

Speakers at both sessions I attended this morning attribute much of their successes to instating sophisticated physician referral measurement and tracking strategies. “If data isn’t actionable, it’s just philosophy,” said Jeff Cowart, CMO for Inova Health System in Springfield, VA, rousing a chuckle from the crowd.

Cowart and his colleague Jeffrey Carr, senior director of sales and growth for the health system, spoke during a session called “Sales Enhancing Volumes and ROI.” They explained how they used market intelligence and internal databases to increase referrals and improve ROI. They also jumped from the 60th percentile to 90th percentile in physician satisfaction scores.

Later I sat in on a session called “Maximizing Physician Recruitment and Retention Strategies” and learned how HealthPartners in St. Paul, MN and Hudson Hospitals and Clinics in Hudson, WI instituted an intricate referral tracking system to better understand and increase physician referrals.

Based on the good amount of audience questions during these sessions, it seems like many hospitals are going beyond gathering information and are tracking, analyzing, comparing, and dissecting. And if you’re not you should put in a plan in place soon—your competition probably already has one.

Live From The Physician Strategies Summit

The Camelback Inn: "Where Time Stands Still" (among other things)

This week I’ll be blogging and tweeting (follow me!) from the Healthcare Strategy Institute’s Physician Strategies Summit in drizzly Scottsdale, AZ. I swear the rain follows me.

The conference kicked off at this afternoon and I attended an information-filled session called “Physician Onboarding: Recruiting for Retention.” Speakers Carrie Bennet from LifePoint Hospitals, Vicky Hill from Wythe County Community Hospital, and Cherie Sibley from Vaughan Regional Medical Center shared a lot of great facts and tips. I’ll discuss key points from the session in my weekly column on Wednesday, so more on that later.

In the mean time, check out my posts from last year’s Customer-Based Marketing Strategies Conference in (again, drizzly) Vegas.

Tweeting for Docs: Using Social Media as a Recruitment Tool

When Geisinger Health System in Danville, PA, was having trouble recruiting gastroenterologists earlier this year, Cathy Connolley knew it was time for an innovative strategy.

“When recruiting gastroenterologists we traditionally would do print ads in different medical journals and direct mail,” says Connolley, Geisinger’s associate vice president of marketing. “But this time, we weren’t getting the types of responses that we were looking for.”

So the Geisinger marketing team worked with Zero-In Recruitment Marketing, a Bloomsburg, PA, firm, to create a social media physician recruitment campaign.

Zero-In began integrating social media into many of their clients’ recruitment efforts because it realized that the majority of physicians use the Internet to conduct their job search. According to a 2008 New England Journal of Medicines study, 71% of respondents said they hunted for jobs online. And the popularity of Sermo, a social networking site just for physicians, gives marketers some insight into how doctors spend their time online.

Geisinger wanted to develop a convenient, cost-effective way to communicate with physicians, Connolley says. “So we sat down with Zero-In and they walked us through what it would take to put a Facebook page up and direct gastroenterologists who met the criteria we were looking for to our page—and that tactic outpaced our direct mail approach and our email blasts.”

Geisinger and Zero-In launched a Facebook page in January, which includes photos, recruitment event information, and links to the health system’s site.

Seaboard Health Care Search, a physician recruitment firm based in Nashville, also worked with Zero-In to promote their brand via social media. But Seaboard focused their efforts on a different channel: Twitter.

“We’re in a marketplace that is now shifting to people who are very young,” says CEO William Herrington. “I’m always looking at how to position my organization to take advantage and get to physicians-in-training earlier.”

Read more about Geisinger and Seaboard’s social media recruitment strategy here.

Healthcare Marketing Leaders: What’s on Your Mind?

NOTE: the link to the survey is fixed now!

In the 2009 HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey, only 16% of healthcare marketing leaders said their efforts were “highly valued” by stakeholders organization-wide. Curious to know if that number has changed in the past year? Well, here’s your chance to participate: The 2010 marketing leaders survey is now open.

Our annual survey reveals a host of information about the healthcare industry in general and healthcare marketing in particular.

And in coming years we’ll be benchmarking questions, gathering information about what leaders consider their top priorities and how they assess of key marketing initiatives. We also have some new questions this year—so make sure to speak up and be heard. The survey of healthcare professionals should take about 14 minutes to complete. [Take the Survey Now]

Leftover Thoughts on Physician Relations, Marketing Obstetrics

In each edition of Healthcare Marketing Advisor (HMA), a monthly four-color newsletter, I ask its advisory board members an important question relevant to the issue’s theme. Sometimes I get so many great responses back I don’t have enough space to include them all in the Ask the Advisors section of the newsletter.

A few months ago I posted some Leftover Thoughts on the Patient Experience. Today I’m posting two insightful responses from the May and June issues. Below, Gary Adamson, the Starizon CEO who plays a prominent role in our Marketing Experience event, voices his thoughts on physician relations and Jamie Haeuser, senior vice president of Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, LA, shares some tips on marketing obstetrics services.

In the May HMA I asked advisors: Should marketers change the way they approach physician relations in the current economic climate?

Gary Adamson, CEO, Starizon

I think the problem with many physician relations programs today is not what is going on in the world of 2008 -2009, but rather in 1984-1985. Sonia Rhodes from Sharp Healthcare and I were commissioned by a client to examine the state-of-the-art of physicians relations programs and propose something new-to-the-world.

After pouring over reports, articles, books, and interviews we came to a number of conclusions, but the most disheartening was that very little had changed in this area since the mid-eighties. Sure there were more joint ventures but they effected a relatively small number of doctors on any medical staff. Yes, there were some pendulum swings of things coming in, going out and then coming back in again—like buying physician practices. But for the most part there has been little movement in 25 years! [more]

Guest Post: Notes from The Physician Strategy Summit

The Physician Strategy Summit, hosted by the Forum for Healthcare Strategists, was held in Atlanta, GA this week. Consistently, this is a wonderful conference for those who are immersed in business planning, strategy and relationship development with physicians.

This year, a special track was added for physician recruitment. There were discussions of employment models, legal obligations along with solid techniques for attracting and retaining physicians.

Each general session highlighted challenges and opportunities for healthcare providers, but I wanted to share some facts from Kaveh Safani, MD, JD at Cisco Systems, Inc. It was a compelling presentation. His initial message clearly illustrated that fixing the health care system is not as simple as many try to portray. There are many complexities and here are a few of the examples he offered.

• In a sample of insured Americans between 2003-2007, 1% of that population represented 30% of the total cost with a total annual health care expenditure of $101,000. And the range of diseases in that 1% group was extremely diverse with no clear groupings to change that would provide significant impact.
• Heart disease is no longer the big driver in inpatient hospital activity or cost. The greatest increase in inpatient care between 2004 and 2007 was renal disease. Conditions likely due to increased diabetes and secondary effects of long term treatment of heart disease.
• The present hospital financial issues have more to do with shrinking investments than operating margins. Actual operating margins for hospitals have trended pretty constant.
• The top performing hospitals clear success factor is decreasing length of stay which enhances productivity and results in labor expense advantages. The other is management of interest expense and bad debt. Top performing hospitals actually spend more on drugs and supplies than lower performing hospitals. He went on to say that most of the LOS management is influenced not by MDs but by hospital systems.
• He offered this video, definitely worth watching.

Challenging times mean more push for tighter measures and faster timelines for relationship sales. That message and a great example of how it is being tracked was presented by Lori McLelland and Una Newman at Emory and Carrie Bennett with LifePoint Hospitals. For readers that are not able to travel to seminars, the content is generally available for listening.

Poll: Does Your Hospital use ePromotion to Reach Referring Physicians?

In this week’s column, I wrote about a pharma sales tactic that’s growing in popularity among physicians.

ePromotion includes a variety of technology-powered initiatives, including technology-enabled promotions, online promotions in which participants can see and/or speak with an activity conductor, and virtual events including seminars, continuing medical education events, opinion leader events, Web conferences, and group discussions.

Is your hospital using ePromotion to reach physicians? Should it be? Take our poll to see how your organization compares.

Any other thoughts on ePromotion and other ways to reach those all-important referring physicians? Are your physician relations efforts being hampered by lack of time and resources? Have you found any other solutions for building relationships with docs? I’d love to hear what you think–share your comments, below.

Healthcare Marketers: Make the Most of the Economic Downturn

In his poem A Rainy Day, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote that “into each life some rain must fall.” Another line in that poem is less frequently quoted: ”Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.” 

So here’s a little sunshine for physician recruiters and liaisons in the midst of a downpour: The economy can actually work in your favor when it comes to recruiting and building better relations with physicians.

In this week’s column, Down Economy Provides Opportunities to Improve Physician Relations, three healthcare marketing experts share their thoughts on how to see opportunity where others see wet hair and worms on the sidewalk. For example:

• Delayed retirement plans make employment more attractive to physicians, says Joel English, executive vice president of BVK. It’s also a buyer’s market.
• A slowdown in patient volume means physicians have more time to help increase patient volume, says Leslie Dean, director of planning and marketing at FirstHealth of the Carolinas. Consider inviting them to speak to potential patients or other physicians.
• And patients’ financial woes are an opportunity to help physicians by offering financial assistance to their patients, says  Roberta Clarke, associate professor at Boston University.

More good news (and great advice): Daniel Weinbach, executive vice president and chief operating officer of The Weinbach Group, says healthcare marketers can not only survive the challenges of the current economy but also thrive. Read more in A Healthcare Marketer’s Guide For Surviving In A Bad Economy.   

Marketing to Physicians: What are you Waiting For?

Marketing to physicians is, arguably, the most important thing hospitals can do to increase volume and market share. So you’d think it would be a priority–perhaps even more so than direct-to-consumer marketing. The just-released 2009 HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey asked marketing leaders to describe their organization’s efforts to grow referrals. For the 13% of you who say you have no physician sales program at all and for the nearly 79% who do not have the full commitment of your organization behind your program, I have one question: What are you thinking?

Read more about the physician referral strategies–or lack thereof–in today’s column, “Passive or Aggressive? What’s Your Physician Relations Strategy?“