CASE STUDY

Disparate to Synchronized: Optimizing Internal Communications

THE CLIENT CHALLENGE

Leaders at a regional not-for-profit health system wanted to optimize their internal communications to unify and streamline messaging across eight hospitals, dozens of physician offices and 20,000-plus employees. The organization needed to ensure corporate communications cascaded systematically to all teams and to improve each clinic’s individual methods for sharing information. 

THE SOLUTION

 Already one of the largest not-for-profit health systems in its state, the organization was experiencing tremendous growth. Knowing this, our goal was to establish best practices for individualized and customizable information-sharing while promoting the benefits of being part of a larger health system.

We began by conducting a thorough audit of each practice’s internal communications. This involved surveying employees, interviewing leadership at each hospital, conducting focus groups with middle management and identifying the most powerful information-sharing methods at each clinic. We distilled our findings into a recommendations document, which we presented to system leadership. Based on that feedback, we developed a formal plan outlining ways to leverage existing tools and adopt new practices to align the cadence and content of the subsidiaries’ internal communications. 

We then created a range of asset templates tailored to each practice, including newsletters, one-pagers and meeting agendas. Corporate communications were integrated into the individual hospitals’ existing newsletters and presented alongside subsidiary news and updates. We synchronized all newsletters so that system-level communications were broadcast simultaneously across all facilities.

THE RESULTS

The system streamlined its internal communications, aligning corporate and hospital messages for a stronger association between the two. By tapping into the information-sharing tools of individual hospitals, leaders were able to build stronger recognition that each facility was part of a larger system, while preserving their own culture, autonomy and sense of individuality. Best practices were established that fostered a hand-in-glove approach to corporate and hospital communications.

CORE PRINCIPLES

In a large health system with a growing need to streamline its internal communications, it is essential to forge information channels that:

Three orange-colored person icons connected by a navy blue circle

Strengthen the sense of connection between corporate and hospitals 

Craft Formatting Tools

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Establish system-wide cadence of information- sharing so no team members are left in the dark

Synchronize Communications

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Simplify internal communications that, especially in the wake of COVID-19, may have become overly individualized and complex

Conduct Communications Audit

THE WIDER LANDSCAPE

Barriers to Synchronizing Corporate and Hospital Communications:

  • Implementing supplementary tools at hospitals of various sizes
  • Assimilating community hospitals into the larger health system 
  • Repairing inconsistent messaging across organization
  • Engaging individual employees at every level of a massive system

400+

practices adopted new information sharing tools

1,200+

employees interviewed

8

hospitals centralized through internal comms

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