Upcoming Conferences Offer Essential Topics for Healthcare Marketers

As difficult as it is to carve out time on already overbooked calendars, keeping abreast of rapidly changing market forces, industry trends and strategy innovations is critical for chief marketing officers charged with growing business and improving competitive performance of health systems and businesses.  Here are a few upcoming meetings where CMOs will be gathering to share, learn and network with colleagues:

The 3rd Annual Health 3.0 Conference: The Next Online Generation
January 25-27, 2011; Orlando, Florida

This conference will explore the newest outlets for social media and mobile applications that have the ability to revolutionize the way health plans handle information exchange for member engagement and ease of use for better health outcomes. Health 3.0 features strategic sessions focused on wellness management and product development, in which industry leaders, C-Level plan executives and senior directors, analyze the future of the next online generation. I'll be facilitating a workshop on the Innovation Process: Steps and Tips to Build Innovation Into Your 3.0 Offering

Click here to view the agenda.

Physician Strategies Summit
February 27 - March 1, 2011; Phoenix, Arizona

The passage of health reform, with its focus on accountable care, care coordination, and value, commands hospital/physician alignment as never before. This conference will arm healthcare executives with the information, insights and peer contacts to develop innovative, successful approaches to bring hospitals and doctors together in new delivery models.  A knowledgeable faculty with practical, in-depth experience in the development, implementation, and operation of sound physician strategies will share case studies and lead thought-provoking general sessions.  I'm pleased to be presenting with Carol Via Flynn, corporate director of marketing and communications for Sentara Healthcare, and Susan Milford, senior vice president for strategic marketing and planning for Centegra Healthcare, on the topic of Marketing the Employed Physician Enterprise.

Click here to download the conference brochure.

Healthcare Marketing and PR Social Media Summit
March 14 - 15, 2011; Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida

The Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media and Ragan Communications have partnered to bring healthcare marketers and PR professionals the hottest social media case studies.  Top social media experts and insiders from Mayo's Center for Social Media will show you how to measure your social media efforts, build a social media plan, transform your communications strategy with mobile health applications, and more. Last year's session sold out.  Click here to learn more.

Mark your calendars also for the following. I'll post more information as it becomes available.

Sixteenth National Healthcare Marketing Strategies Summit
March 27 - 29, 2011; Orlando, Florida

SHSMD (Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development) CONNECTIONS 2011
September 14 - 17, 2011; Phoenix, Arizona

Top 10 in 2010: Ten Forces Framing Strategic Discussions for Healthcare Leaders

By any account, 2009 was a watershed year in which politics, the economy, public sentiment and the media all played a significant role in framing a new environment for health care over the next decade. With tumultuous challenge to the first significant overhaul of our nation’s health care system since the introduction of Medicare in the mid-1960s, health systems are still trying to determine the likely impact of payment reform initiatives on health system strategy. Here is a round-up of the most significant market forces that will shape strategic discussions over the next year, and most likely for the foreseeable future.

Top 10 in 2010: Ten Forces Framing Strategic Discussions for Healthcare Leaders

View more documents from Karen Corrigan.

Click here to download the full article.

Have We Banned Brand Discussions from the C-Suite?

Recently a colleague asked my opinion on educational topics for healthcare executives focused on physician integration and alignment. We talked over the usual suspects - varied alignment models, integration frameworks, physician governance and leadership, transaction issues. culture - to which she asked, 'these are all important, but what isn't yet being talked about when it comes to the integration of health systems and physicians?"

"Brand," I replied. "No one is talking about the brand impact of large-scale physician integration strategies."

"Oh," she said, "but these are executives, not marketers. They're not really interested in brand."

(sigh)

Just imagine this conversation if we were discussing Apple, Proctor and Gamble, Starbucks. Can you see Steve Jobs dismissing brand as an issue central to a company acquisition? Howard Shultz declaring that brand is the lone responsibility of the marketing department?

The problems lies not in whether the C-suite is interested in brand, but whether it understands and embraces brand as central to creating customer value. When the first brand question raised is "what do we call the new physician enterprise?" rather than "what competitively unique, relevant brand value proposition will this combination bring to market to grow our business in new and exciting ways" then it's clear that brand is still seen as a communications tool rather than an asset to be leveraged for market gains.

Branding is a management perspective -- the totality of activities to define, shape and deliver customer perceived value. Are we to leave this to chance after spending millions to effect physician transactions?

In an earlier post (Keeping Your Brand Healthy After Physician Integration) I stated, "Assuming the average primary care physician sees about 5,000 patients visits a year, back of the napkin math shows us that a health system with 100 employed physicians brings in a half million visits or so annually – with 300 to 400 physicians that number can rise upwards of 2 million. Now assuming that brand impressions are shaped through familiarity and frequency of use, then it’s easy to see how a large employed physician practice can be the catalyst for building – or unraveling – brand reputation."

Brands drive customer perceptions. Customer perceptions drive business outcomes. This isn't a topic of interest for the C-suite?

Karen

St. John's Mercy Physician Clinical Council

A Shared Governance Model for Physician Engagement

Free Webcast - Thursday, September 3, 2009; 12 noon Central

Denny DeNarvez, president and CEO of St. John’s Mercy Health Care in St. Louis, Missouri, is a fan of the Physician Clinical Council (PCC). Which is no surprise when you learn that she first developed a similar shared governance model in 1999 while serving as CEO of the Minneapolis Heart Institute; and again, a few years later, as CEO of Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Now she’s imported the Physician Clinical Council to St. John’s Mercy with significant and positive results.

The PPC concept is based on a simple set of truths, says DeNarvez. “The business decisions of the hospital affect physicians, just as their business decisions impact the hospital. The reality is that patient care is largely directed by physicians who are practicing independently. Doctors and hospitals must work together to ensure quality and efficiency in patient care.”

At St. John’s Mercy, the Physician Clinical Council is a shared leadership model that engages physician leaders in the business side of running a hospital. Ten physicians sit on the council – chosen for their leadership abilities vs. longevity or representational position – and meet every two weeks to discuss and weigh in on issues such as new clinical services, technology acquisitions, business strategies, market dynamics, physician recruitment. Physicians are paired with an executive counterpart and receive coaching on aspects of leadership, conflict management and finance, among other topics.

“Establishing the Clinical Council has been a positive development for the medical staff,” said Dr. Charles Rehm, president of the St. John’s Mercy medical staff. “It created another level of much-needed dialogue and signaled that the CEO really wanted to engage physicians in two-way communications.”

You hear first-hand how the Physician Clinical Council works, as well as steps to take when considering a shared governance structure, when you join our Navvis & Company webcast scheduled Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 12 noon central. The discussion will be led by Denny DeNarvez and Stuart Baker, MD, president of Navvis Consulting. To learn more and register for the webcast go to www.navvisandcompany.com. You can also download a white paper describing the PCC in more detail.

Karen Corrigan

5 Key Areas of Focus when Assessing Physician Need and Alignment Strategies

What health system doesn’t have physician recruitment, integration and alignment at the top of their strategic priorities? Market competition, pipeline shortages, failing practice economics and a growing recognition that they can’t achieve quality and financial goals without physicians at the table, have organizations jockeying to win the race for physician integration and commitment.

A well-planned approach requires superb strategic thinking about possible, probable and preferred futures, and a well-crafted plan to bring vision into reality. The process will be better informed through an analysis about the current state of physicians in the marketplace and how that is likely to change in the future.

However, data is just data unless you use it strategically. 5Rs™ provides a framework and methodology in which to discover and calculate opportunities:

1. Recruitment — Recruitment strategies address physician shortages when both strategic and community assessments indicate a need for physicians in a particular specialty
2. Retention — Top producing physicians are candidates for retention strategies based upon historic commitment of activity to the hospital for inpatient and outpatient service volumes
3. Redirection — Physician candidates for redirection strategies are typically those aligned with competitor hospitals.
4. Redeployment — The goal is to increase practice volumes through better geographic location of the practice or through the presence of multiple practice sites
5. Retirement — Transition planning should be considered for top producing physicians over the age of 55.

Insights from this analysis will launch health systems out of the starting gate and into the field by producing a focused set of tactics to support the overall physician engagement strategy.

Karen Corrigan