Health Care Strategist

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A world-renowned Chicago-area health care organization is recruiting for a seasoned, stellar architect and facilities planner. Ideally a licensed architect with 10+ years in facilities planning and development, this individual will be comfortable working at all levels of the organization including C-suite and Board of Directors. S/he will see projects through all phases, from design through construction, providing strong capital budgeting and project management direction, while building a capable in-house staff of designers and project managers. Candidates should exhibit strong knowledge of health care engineering systems, urban planning and land use development, from either/both owner and consulting viewpoints. Renee Banchiere of Hanna & Associates is coordinating the search. Contact her at renee@ahanna.com or 714-465-2087.

Good SlideShare Presentation on health care's expanding use of social media: Healthcare & Social Media: 2009 Trends & Strategy View more presentations from Scott Meis .

From Hospital Online Marketing Education, here's an example of a hospital system augmenting its marketing efforts with a Facebook presence. Watch the video as blogger Christopher Boyer interviews Steve Leibforth, Sr. Web Developer for 6-hospital Provena Health.

As I've said many times here on Health Care Strategist, I define a "brand" as that which an organization is WILLING to deliver, and actually CAPABLE of delivering, no more, no less. Within that context, it's interesting to see brands testing themselves and the marketplace on what they WANT TO and CAN deliver without straying from their essential "brand-ness." Now Business Week magazine publishes a story on the struggles of being McDonalds' "Director of Culinary Innovation." What? McDonalds? Culinary innovation? Am I alone in finding the association somewhat jarring? Talk about an uphill battle. Dan Coudreaut obviously "relishes" a challenge! (I know, I know...) I might actually drive through for a late-night order of red curry eggplant. Hold the fries.

Here's an assignment for all you hospital leaders: stand by your employee entrance in the morning, the door where most employees arrive at work. Observe facial expressions, tone of voice and body language. What do you see? All too often it's the drudgery of coming to work made visible. Now do the same exercise at the same door as employees leave work. Compare facial expressions, tone of voice and body language to what you observed that morning. At this hour, I'm betting you'll see the excitement of LEAVING work made visible. The excitement of leaving a job that doesn't fulfill, on behalf of an organization not trusted, in the service of a strategy not understood. The happiness and engagement of leaving all that because something better awaits. Bowling, maybe. Why is it that employees show far more passion for their hobbies and sporting activities than their work - where they spend the majority of their energy and waking hours? How is it that so many organizat...

Reform health care not by giving people infinite choices, but by figuring out what they want and delivering it, seamlessly, elegantly and consistently. Making a reformed health care system operate more like Apple and less (WAY less) like Windows, from Davis Liu, M.D.

For a moment, let's assume the passage of some sort of health insurance reform. If, as seems a likely outcome, millions of people become newly-insured, health care's providers may need an entirely new phraseology and strategic playbook. Out the window: pervasive, demeaning codewords for the poor, like "medically indigent," "charity cases" or, worse, "deadbeats" and "GOMERs." Suddenly au couran t: unfamiliar labels like "paying customers," underserved new markets" and "growth opportunities." Who will those newly-insured reward with their loyalty and spending power? Think about it. Will it be those providers (and you know who you are) who've spent professional lifetimes studiously avoiding any contact, closing services while de-marketing others, and de-camping to the wealthy suburbs whenever feasible? I hope not, frankly. Somehow that'd be like well-fed banquet-goers heading back for seconds while st...

Joe Inguanzo, President & CEO of Professional Research Consultants, Inc. , commenting in the April, 2009 H&HN: "It's fair to say that loyal customers are the only constant in today's rapidly changing health care environment. And, when every dollar counts, keeping loyal customers in your court is a sound strategy that can be taken to the bank." Inguanzo told me this afternoon that his research firmly establishes a relationship between those clients MOST focused on customer loyalty and those LEAST affected by the economic downturn . For one survey-leading client, a recent quarter's financial results were the best ever. Take THAT to the bank!

In a desperate search for new revenues, Southwest Airlines is now charging passengers $10 for so-called EarlyBird Check-in. "Southwest officials say that by paying the extra $10, you'll probably be among the first 30 people to board — the "A" group — although they won't promise it. " (Emphasis mine.) Analysts forecast the new charges adding $75 million - and possibly as much as $250 million - to Southwest's annual revenues. It's an interesting case study in pricing power and brand performance. If Southwest's fares are more than $10 cheaper compared to alternatives (which they are not, at least on the routes I fly most often) consumers may not care all that much. But I care. And yes, it's partly about the money. For years I've gone out of my way to avoid Southwest, due mainly to their chaotic ticketing and boarding processes. There are better-organized bus companies plying back roads in the rural Third World. (Plus I hate Chicago...

"To date, Kaiser Permanente members have completed 6 million doctor’s visits without using one gallon of gasoline."

Call it the Starbucks experiment, an idea sparked by a recent Business Week article on the re-making of Starbucks brand and growth trajectory. Take your half-dozen smartest employees, gave them some money to play with and charge the team with creating a brand-new organization able to effectively compete with your current organization. The results would look like...what? New ideas, new templates, new norms, new brands, new cultures, new processes? What's the harm? You might learn something important before your strategic rivals.

(Driving home from Texas last week, I saw an Intercity van on the highway. It reminded me of this post, written several years ago for another blog.) I'm a little skeptical of case studies being generalized into one-size-fits-all recommendations for success, and I have no idea if the company I'm about to discuss is "successful" in the traditional business sense (i.e. profitable.) But the company, Intercity Lines, Inc ., provided a rather expensive service to my family, met all my expectations, secured my repeat business and did all of this with nice, service-oriented people and a set of very simple, low-cost business principles. I think it's worth talking about; read on if you do too. Intercity bills themselves as "America's premier enclosed auto transport company." A year ago, my oldest daughter needed her prize possession, a brand new Nissan 350-Z, transported to California where she was beginning (another) year of college. A web search for aut...

Advertising gives you the illusion that you control the conversation. You're talking. Surely "they" are listening. And of course "they" are paying attention and dutifully acting as you wish. Insight occurs when realization dawns: Most people live their lives happily ignoring you. Of those devoting part of their limited attention span to your message, most neither care very much nor remember very long. The select few who BOTH care AND remember apply their OWN interpretive filters which may (though usually not) match your own. So give up the illusion that you're in control of the conversation. You aren't. You never were. Let the learning begin.

A health care branding and strategy blog debuts from Scott Regan of Anderson Healthcare.

The Chicago Tribune on social networking and corporate marketing : "What corporate marketers are discovering is that many of the strategies they've used for decades don't apply in the new social realm. For one thing, the companies have had to learn to let go of control. They can't be unnerved by an audience that talks back, often with brutal candor. "Such dialogue is occurring anyway, said market researcher Josh Bernoff. "You can ignore it or you can try to fix it ," said Bernoff, co-author of "Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies."' The key point there is that the dialogue is occurring anyway, with you or without you. Better to be part of the conversation. And yes, it's difficult to predict what will work in social media, but the same thing could be said for most branding and advertising (who would have predicted a lizard could sell insurance?)

From Chicago News: United Airlines' employees smash a guitar while passengers watch from the plane. Guitar's owner writes a song and posts a YouTube video . Said video is viewed nearly 650,000 times. Airline apologizes and uses video for "employee training" purposes. What does it say when an airline needs to train its employees not to break stuff? Think about it next time you hear an airline executive complain about the industry's poor growth prospects. And speaking of poor growth prospects, if your hospital occupies the lower quartiles of patient satisfaction results, you might want to prepare for the day a similar video spotlights your ER waiting times and execrable customer service. I can just imagine the humor, the pathos, the embarrassment...the desperate search for someone in Patient Relations to "fix" the problem.

Testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, former CIGNA executive Wendell Potter "...testified that large health insurers routinely and intentionally drop high-risk members. They also make coverage exclusions difficult for policy holders to understand and dramatically boost premium rates for small employers that have high claim costs, he asserted." Responding to Potter's accusations, CIGNA mentioned the company's long support (emphasis mine) for a health care system that mandates insurance coverage for everyone at the same rates “regardless of whether or not the person has a pre-existing illness.” Who are they kidding? And since when does acknowledging some new post-election realities constitute "long support?" Find a pdf of Potter's full testimony here.

In ways subtle and overt, medical professionals are encouraged act like businesses. And so they do, sometimes realizing too late the difficult bargain they've struck. Writing in the NY Times , Dr. Sandeep Jauhar expresses the dilemma : "...the consequences of this commercial consciousness are troubling. Among my colleagues I sense an emotional emptiness created by the relentless consideration of money. Most doctors went into medicine for intellectual stimulation or the desire to develop relationships with patients, not to maximize income. There is a palpable sense of grieving. We strove for so long, made so many sacrifices, and for what? In the end, for many, the job has become only that — a job." Most problematic, I believe, is the fact that a sense of "commercial consciousness" is no longer optional if obligations like student loans and payrolls are to be met. It's now the price of admission, a necessary requisite for professional and financial surviv...

'Thanks for reading' to organizations showing up here in the last day or so: Episcopal Health Services Apple Computer Florida Hospital Thomson Financial University of Phoenix Loma Linda University Medical Center Auburn University Kaiser Permanente Visible Technologies Fleishman Hillard Bristol Myers Squibb Johns Hopkins University of Nebraska Medical Center Courtesy of Statcounter's domain tracking stats, I know I've got readers and lurkers. Now what I'd like is commenters. Argue with me. Tell me I'm full of it. It's certainly not out of the question.