Visualizing healthcare personalization through a mix of human forms and DNA, illustrating the … [+]
“What other industry is there where someone pays top dollar for something they don’t know what they’re going to get, where they’re invested emotionally and physically and don’t know if it’s going to work? This is the health care opportunity.”
—Molly Luton, head of marketing and communications, Ballad Health
As I’ve mentioned throughout this series, healthcare is unlike any other industry.
The challenge Luton cites is one reason why it can be so difficult to build trust with people before they’ve ever experienced a provider’s care or services.
“If you book with Hilton (Hotels), you know what you’re getting,” Luton said. “In health care, you’re trusting another human being to deliver something that’s not yet defined, and there may not even be a definition for it if you’re not diagnosed by the end of your visit. So the trust rate that needs to happen… it’s important to listen, think, feel and do for the patient first and use that to react then and build a business.”
This is article 12 of a 14-part weekly series in which I share insights from 2024 Health in the Age of Personalization. We heard from a wide range of healthcare experts—leaders spanning all aspects of healthcare organizations, from the boardroom and C-suite to the bedside. We covered topics such as why personalization is important, how we can shape our organizational culture to facilitate it, how to bring personalization to your employer brand, why better care requires respect for individuality, and what CEOs can learn about personalization by nurses[KP1] .
In this article I will share highlights from the panel discussion on the role of communications and branding in helping healthcare systems earn patient trust.
Participants included:
- Molly Lutonhead of marketing and communications, Ballad Health
- Angharad Bhardwajcommunications manager, WelbeHealth
- Jennifer Bollingersenior vice president, chief consumer and brand officer; Sutter Health
Help people understand the system before they even need it
Bollinger shared a story that most of us can relate to. Her brother-in-law was at the hospital and was there with her sister trying to support and advocate for both her sister and her sister’s husband.
“He couldn’t communicate,” Bollinger said. “No one ever addressed us as the two people who sat in this room all day, every day. Finally, I went out and asked for the nurse. It wasn’t in my hospital, but it might as well have been.’
But not everyone knows who or what to ask, and that made Bollinger wonder: “How do we help patients understand in advance, What are the rules? How do you work? What should you expect? I’m a big believer in setting expectations and then meeting them. We often don’t stop and look at what’s going on and say, okay, this is a problem. This family member is alone. No one has spoken to them in three shifts. Why didn’t anyone notice?’
This brings up an important point: building trust requires much more than communicating a brand identity. It requires starting with a brand identity that embodies credibility.
Luton agreed and shared this example.
“We’re not marketers in the same sense that a consumer would understand that word,” Luton said. “I treat us as marketing agencies. We need to understand the functions. We need to know how the business is built. Is the house in order before we put it on the market? If the house is messy and unkempt and the roof is falling in, I’m not going to put it on Zillow.”
He said marketing and communications managers are the advocates of the brand, so they need a seat at the table when it comes to making decisions not only about messaging, but also about how the health system works—because they bring the voice of the consumer to the conversation.
“We need to continue to push and advocate for the patient in a very different way—uniting their voices to make a change in surgery,” Luton said. “There is nothing more precious than that. No brand building can be more valuable than supporting the patient and what they need.”
But you can’t always change the way things are done. People don’t like waiting for test results, but sometimes waiting is unavoidable. What then?
“It’s about feeling heard,” Luton said. “If something takes, in fact, five days to read the scan because of volume, we have to have that two-way communication, saying:this is happening, here’s an update, this is happening.It’s about understanding how that consumer wants to receive that message and then delivering it to them in the right way. Do not send letters to them in the post office. We need push notifications. We need an app. We need such things that will resonate with the audience. So it’s about stopping and learning and listening to what they have to say and adapting our tools and our functionality to the needs of that audience, which is then that personalization part. It gives them what they need.”
Speaking of what they need…
Healthcare has not kept up with modern expectations
All companies, in every industry, are always trying to figure out how to appeal to younger generations. An organization’s survival depends on its ability to continue to grow its customer base, and that depends on building trust with new generations. This is a challenge, because new generations have their own expectations—and healthcare organizations don’t seem ready to meet them.
A key expectation: “Transparency,” Bhardwaj said. “They can spot a standard message or an AI response from a mile away. You really have to be transparent. you should do your best to take the time to personalize your message. They don’t want a standard answer.”
Bollinger agreed and expanded this beyond communications to include the business model itself.
“What we’re offering today, this generation isn’t going to buy for a long time,” Bollinger said. “Patient expectations are formed outside of healthcare. In any other experience I have, if I have to call [rather than chat or go online]something has gone terribly wrong. However, in healthcare, you have to ask for everything. Do we even have an offer that will resonate with them before we even launch it? Because what we offer today—phone, wait, come in—they say, “I’ll just go somewhere else where I can get it right away.”
It’s not about what You You want to say
What does it mean for healthcare leadership to stop governing by standards that do not account for what matters to the individual?
Bhardwaj said you have to empower people.
“I started my career in hospitality and a lot of times you enable your teams to make decisions that aren’t always standard,” he said. “You have your baseline, we have a lot of compliance that we have to stay on, but there are often ways that we can [personalize by saying]”Hey, how can we help this patient understand what I’m saying?” Or how can I make a communication plan and provide that feedback to leadership through the eyes of hospitality, empowering our teams and empowering leaders?”
Luton also added that we need to use language that resonates. He said that we often build communication plans based on what we want to say, rather than what people need to hear.
“If we don’t understand the linguistics of our patient’s needs and the vernaculars they use, [the message won’t get through,]she said. “We can talk about oncology all day, but they use the word cancer. If we try to use the word oncology in our advertising, and if that’s a word, they [wouldn’t search or] I don’t know how to write, we don’t resonate. In fact we are alienating ourselves even more and creating a divide.”
Bhardwaj came back to this idea of empowerment in the moment if a message doesn’t seem to be getting through.
“We really need to meet patients where they are and empower our teams to say, I don’t think that message got through or I don’t think they got the letter they should have gotten or the reminder they should have gotten.” Bhardwaj said. “Our employees are really the people who are on the ground with our patients every day. In our communication and marketing materials, we must demonstrate the fact that we have listened to our employees. We want to provide a safe place where they can provide that feedback. If there was a gap, we should be able to say, you know what? We listened and you can tell us, Hey, that’s not working for us. And that’s the other cultural change that needs to happen with leaders.”
It’s time to stop seeing marketing and communications as a cost center and start seeing us as an integral part of strategic reinvention and growth.
Watch this short video for more from the panel.
Next time: Enhancing the patient experience in the digital age.
