Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock

High Stakes

Differentiate your hospital with value as patients see it

Quick:  Which hospital in your area has “top quality healthcare”?  Did you think of one – or did you think of all of them?  It would be tough to think of a hospital that doesn’t claim it.

What does “top quality” mean, anyway?  It is a phrase so often stated that it has become diluted of any impact or significance.  It’s like a political candidate who is “pro-education” or “anti-crime.”  It’s a statement of the obvious.

As hospital insiders, operators and marketers, we often use the word “quality” in our hospital public relations and advertising efforts to mean the latest technology, or widest range of specialties, or strong statistical outcomes, or physicians with degrees from well-known medical schools.

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High Stakes

How can healthcare stay healthy? Communication

At the recent annual meeting of the Chicago Healthcare Executives Forum, a crowd of 500 healthcare leaders heard from the CEOs of our industry’s most powerful (and sometimes conflicting) associations – the American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, American Nurses’ Association  and American College of Healthcare Executives.

Altogether, these organizations represent 5000+ hospitals, 3.1 million nurses, 40,000 healthcare executives and 250,000 physicians. Impressive. As they opined on how we prepare for a healthcare environment of ACOs, reimbursement overhaul, babybooming demand, workforce shortages, ...
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High Stakes

Bring communicators in early on hospital deal talks

Vince Galloro, who recently joined us after a long stint as a hospitals reporter for Modern Healthcare, offers a guest post this week on the role of communicators during the sale of a hospital:

Bringing communicators into a secret negotiation might seem counterintuitive. Negotiating the sale or merger of a hospital requires confidentiality, but ultimately, hospital leaders will want to make strong, clear statements about the deal and the thorough process that brought it about. To do that well, executives will want to have someone attuned to the needs of good communications as an integral part of the process.

This idea came to mind recently after I read a new guide ...
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