Selected Podcast
How Hillsdale Hospital Pivoted Quickly in the COVID-19 Pandemic to Offer Telehealth Services
Rachel Lott discusses how Hillsdale Hospital was able to pivot quickly to offer Telehealth Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Featured Speaker:
Rachel Lott
When the COVID-19 pandemic began impacting patients’ willingness to come to the hospital for care, Rachel Lott, Director of Marketing, Development & Community Outreach, worked quickly with her senior leadership team to expand the hospital’s telehealth services and promote them to the community. Transcription:
How Hillsdale Hospital Pivoted Quickly in the COVID-19 Pandemic to Offer Telehealth Services
Bill Klaproth: SHSMD members play a critical role as to the organizations and communities they serve. This special edition of the SHSMD Podcast is part of the COVID-19 conversations series featuring members stories and resources in an effort to provide insight into how some organizations are managing this unprecedented crisis.
Brian Griffin: Hello everyone, I'm Brian Griffin with SHSMD and I'm pleased to have with me today Rachel Lott, who is the Director of Marketing Development and Community Outreach for Hillsdale Hospital in Hillsdale, Michigan. Rachel, good afternoon.
Rachel Lott: Hi Brian. How are you?
Host: Very good. And we're so pleased that you've taken time to join us today. One of the challenges that hospitals and health systems across the country have had is finding a really effective way to thank their teams, to thank their caregivers for everything that they're doing and involving the community in that. And you've come up with kind of a novel way to do that. Would you like to explain that today?
Rachel Lott: Yes. So we did something kind of fun and very different. That has had a huge impact on our staff and on our team and on our community as well. So we are in a rural community. We're in a County of about 48,000 people and we are an independent small hospital. And so we have a long standing relationship with our community. We have been here for about 105 years. And as you can imagine in a small town and over that length of a history, there's a lot of history there. So you know, there has been a rebuilding over the last several years of the relationship that we have with our community. And so before COVID-19 even started, we've actually been working on and looking at a rebranding effort to really have more of a real big B brand, not just branding to move into that phase of making sure we have a true identity within our community. And so we've been in the process of researching that and working on that.
Of course, as many others have experienced, COVID-19 kind of put a hard stop on just about everything that we were working on. But as we kind of started the first week or two of our response to COVID-19 and my time became 100% devoted to COVID-19 related communications, getting new signage together, communicating new processes for visiting the hospital, all of that kind of thing. I really just felt like, you know, we need to use this opportunity and opportunity that we didn't want to have for this reason, certainly, but we need to take this opportunity to start really rebuilding that relationship, build trust within our healthcare system so that when people do need their care related to COVID-19, they feel more confident. They feel more connected to us. And also when people need their care for things unrelated to COVID-19, we wanted them to feel confident and feel connected to us while at the same time giving our staff the recognition that they so deserve for working during one of the most stressful times that might be in our, you know, history of healthcare in our nation.
So my original idea was to replace all of the content on all of the art on our billboards around the County with a phrase that would kind of just address COVID-19 without specifically mentioning it. So our tagline for our hospital is caring, commitment community. And I had the idea to put that on a billboard and then right below that, but now more than ever. So it would say caring commitment community. Now more than ever. And then the hashtag that we've created for all this, which is hashtag Hillsdale Strong. I ended up deciding to use those billboards for our virtual visits instead to promote our telehealth that we launched. But that message and that sentiment was still really important. So I ordered a banner to hang up at the hospital. And at the same time I was just thinking to myself, how can we use this not only as a way to communicate our feeling toward our community? Which is we're caring for you or committed to you and we're part of your community now more than ever, but also to allow our community members to show that same support back to our healthcare workers.
So what we did was we created yard signs that have a very simple message as well that say we support our healthcare heroes now more than ever, hashtag Hillsdale Strong, and then they have our hospital logo on them. So we, you know, in my mind, as I was thinking through this and when I came up with this idea, I was thinking, you know, it'd be great to have something visual. You kind of, sometimes you try to think through what's a good social media campaign where I can get people to take pictures and make something really visual, right? Well, we don't want people coming up to the hospital and hanging out. And so I thought what can we do that will still connect people? It's something they could post on their social media if they want to as well. This was such a good visual way for people to display their support in a physical manner in front of their home. But also I was thinking if I were working as a nurse and I had a really long stressful shift taking care of patients, taking care of COVID-19 patients, and on my way home I'm seeing signs pop up every couple houses or every couple streets that say we support our healthcare heroes and know that they're talking about me.
That would have a huge impact on my mental and emotional wellbeing and make it a lot easier to get up and go do it again the next day. So that was where we came up with this idea for these yard signs. The cool thing was it just took off like wildfire. We cannot keep them around. So we started with about 300 that we ordered initially and I thought those would last us about a week. They were gone within 48 hours. So we ordered another 300 and when we put those out, they were gone within 24 hours and then we ordered another 400, so we would kind of end up at a thousand by the end of those. And I thought, Oh well there's no way these will disappear so fast. A lot of people already have them. Well those disappeared in 24 hours as well. So we have more on the way. But in the span of about a week or a week and a half, we ended up with a thousand yard signs out in our community and as a nonclinical team member who's putting in a lot of long hours right now, there was one night I was going home from the office, it was about 11 o'clock at night. I'm sure some of you know exactly what I'm talking about cause you've been pulling these kinds of days and it had a huge impact on me personally to see that as I was driving home that evening to see, wow, there's so much support out here for us and the people in our community have our back and our team was able to see that as well.
Host: What kind of response have you had from your caregivers and other team members at the hospital to the signs?
Rachel Lott: They have just been so grateful and thankful for them. They've told us how it means so much to them to see them everywhere, that they can't believe how many of them are out there. That's been one of the most frequent comments that I've got that they're shocked and so surprised that we have this level of support in our community. And you know, I think sometimes it's easy, especially when you are so you know, in healthcare we're very emotionally connected to what we do. There's a deeper purpose and a deeper mission behind our work in this industry. So sometimes when you get negative feedback it sticks with you and you start to think that's probably what everybody thinks. So it's easy to kind of get in this mindset of maybe people don't actually support us that much. So would you see the level of support out there in a very tangible way where people had to get in their car after they were at the grocery store or doing some other approved outing based on our current stay home orders here in the State of Michigan. And make kind of a separate little side trip past the hospital to come pick up a sign, take it home and put it in their yard and show that support in their home where they live. It really has a huge impact on our team and we've heard that from them so much since we started putting these out for folks.
Host: What have you heard from the community about that campaign?
Rachel Lott: Do you have any more signs coming? That's what we keep hearing the most is more and more people wanting them. People asking us to bring them to them. If they're folks who maybe don't have a car or can't drive, some of our older folks in the community have said, can you drop one off? So we're trying to find staff who kind of live in nearby areas and can drop one off on the very rare occasion that we have someone like that. But people are just so happy to have them and so proud to display them at their homes, which has been really incredible. This is not something people are doing because they feel obligated. We're really seeing so many people saying, Oh, I need more. Oh my mom wants one. Oh, I want to get one for my neighbor. Everyone on my street wants one, can I come get 10 you know, we're seeing that happen. And it's just been so powerful because it is truly showing that reciprocal relationship between the support that we are providing our community in this time and the support that they're providing to us.
And even with our staff. You know, I was trying to think of what's a way that we can, you know, originally what I was thinking was can we find some sort of sticker or something we could wear on our surgical masks or something cool to be able to show our Hillsdale strong and are now more than ever a type of sentiment. And then we ended up coming up with these little buttons that say caring commitment community. Now more than ever, hashtag Hillsdale strong with our logo. So all of our employees are wearing these right now. So it's a reminder to us why what we're doing is so important. And it's also a reminder to our community members that we're here for them. The signs are a reminder that they're here for us too.
Host: Well Rachel, we appreciate you taking the time to share your great story about how you're engaging with the community and how you're having the community engage with your team to thank them and recognize them for all that they're doing. And thanks also for sharing this with your SHSMD member audience, because I think a lot of your peers out there are looking for innovative ways to do this very thing, and I think you've given them a great idea. So please visit shsmd.org to view more healthcare marketing and communication stories related to COVID-19 and thank you for joining us this afternoon. Rachel, thank you very much.
Rachel Lott: Thanks for having me.
Bill Klaproth: Thanks for listening and know that we are thinking of you during these unprecedented times. For general updates and resources on COVID-19 head to aha.org/COVID19 and visit shsmd.org for a collection of specific COVID-19 resources for strategists.
How Hillsdale Hospital Pivoted Quickly in the COVID-19 Pandemic to Offer Telehealth Services
Bill Klaproth: SHSMD members play a critical role as to the organizations and communities they serve. This special edition of the SHSMD Podcast is part of the COVID-19 conversations series featuring members stories and resources in an effort to provide insight into how some organizations are managing this unprecedented crisis.
Brian Griffin: Hello everyone, I'm Brian Griffin with SHSMD and I'm pleased to have with me today Rachel Lott, who is the Director of Marketing Development and Community Outreach for Hillsdale Hospital in Hillsdale, Michigan. Rachel, good afternoon.
Rachel Lott: Hi Brian. How are you?
Host: Very good. And we're so pleased that you've taken time to join us today. One of the challenges that hospitals and health systems across the country have had is finding a really effective way to thank their teams, to thank their caregivers for everything that they're doing and involving the community in that. And you've come up with kind of a novel way to do that. Would you like to explain that today?
Rachel Lott: Yes. So we did something kind of fun and very different. That has had a huge impact on our staff and on our team and on our community as well. So we are in a rural community. We're in a County of about 48,000 people and we are an independent small hospital. And so we have a long standing relationship with our community. We have been here for about 105 years. And as you can imagine in a small town and over that length of a history, there's a lot of history there. So you know, there has been a rebuilding over the last several years of the relationship that we have with our community. And so before COVID-19 even started, we've actually been working on and looking at a rebranding effort to really have more of a real big B brand, not just branding to move into that phase of making sure we have a true identity within our community. And so we've been in the process of researching that and working on that.
Of course, as many others have experienced, COVID-19 kind of put a hard stop on just about everything that we were working on. But as we kind of started the first week or two of our response to COVID-19 and my time became 100% devoted to COVID-19 related communications, getting new signage together, communicating new processes for visiting the hospital, all of that kind of thing. I really just felt like, you know, we need to use this opportunity and opportunity that we didn't want to have for this reason, certainly, but we need to take this opportunity to start really rebuilding that relationship, build trust within our healthcare system so that when people do need their care related to COVID-19, they feel more confident. They feel more connected to us. And also when people need their care for things unrelated to COVID-19, we wanted them to feel confident and feel connected to us while at the same time giving our staff the recognition that they so deserve for working during one of the most stressful times that might be in our, you know, history of healthcare in our nation.
So my original idea was to replace all of the content on all of the art on our billboards around the County with a phrase that would kind of just address COVID-19 without specifically mentioning it. So our tagline for our hospital is caring, commitment community. And I had the idea to put that on a billboard and then right below that, but now more than ever. So it would say caring commitment community. Now more than ever. And then the hashtag that we've created for all this, which is hashtag Hillsdale Strong. I ended up deciding to use those billboards for our virtual visits instead to promote our telehealth that we launched. But that message and that sentiment was still really important. So I ordered a banner to hang up at the hospital. And at the same time I was just thinking to myself, how can we use this not only as a way to communicate our feeling toward our community? Which is we're caring for you or committed to you and we're part of your community now more than ever, but also to allow our community members to show that same support back to our healthcare workers.
So what we did was we created yard signs that have a very simple message as well that say we support our healthcare heroes now more than ever, hashtag Hillsdale Strong, and then they have our hospital logo on them. So we, you know, in my mind, as I was thinking through this and when I came up with this idea, I was thinking, you know, it'd be great to have something visual. You kind of, sometimes you try to think through what's a good social media campaign where I can get people to take pictures and make something really visual, right? Well, we don't want people coming up to the hospital and hanging out. And so I thought what can we do that will still connect people? It's something they could post on their social media if they want to as well. This was such a good visual way for people to display their support in a physical manner in front of their home. But also I was thinking if I were working as a nurse and I had a really long stressful shift taking care of patients, taking care of COVID-19 patients, and on my way home I'm seeing signs pop up every couple houses or every couple streets that say we support our healthcare heroes and know that they're talking about me.
That would have a huge impact on my mental and emotional wellbeing and make it a lot easier to get up and go do it again the next day. So that was where we came up with this idea for these yard signs. The cool thing was it just took off like wildfire. We cannot keep them around. So we started with about 300 that we ordered initially and I thought those would last us about a week. They were gone within 48 hours. So we ordered another 300 and when we put those out, they were gone within 24 hours and then we ordered another 400, so we would kind of end up at a thousand by the end of those. And I thought, Oh well there's no way these will disappear so fast. A lot of people already have them. Well those disappeared in 24 hours as well. So we have more on the way. But in the span of about a week or a week and a half, we ended up with a thousand yard signs out in our community and as a nonclinical team member who's putting in a lot of long hours right now, there was one night I was going home from the office, it was about 11 o'clock at night. I'm sure some of you know exactly what I'm talking about cause you've been pulling these kinds of days and it had a huge impact on me personally to see that as I was driving home that evening to see, wow, there's so much support out here for us and the people in our community have our back and our team was able to see that as well.
Host: What kind of response have you had from your caregivers and other team members at the hospital to the signs?
Rachel Lott: They have just been so grateful and thankful for them. They've told us how it means so much to them to see them everywhere, that they can't believe how many of them are out there. That's been one of the most frequent comments that I've got that they're shocked and so surprised that we have this level of support in our community. And you know, I think sometimes it's easy, especially when you are so you know, in healthcare we're very emotionally connected to what we do. There's a deeper purpose and a deeper mission behind our work in this industry. So sometimes when you get negative feedback it sticks with you and you start to think that's probably what everybody thinks. So it's easy to kind of get in this mindset of maybe people don't actually support us that much. So would you see the level of support out there in a very tangible way where people had to get in their car after they were at the grocery store or doing some other approved outing based on our current stay home orders here in the State of Michigan. And make kind of a separate little side trip past the hospital to come pick up a sign, take it home and put it in their yard and show that support in their home where they live. It really has a huge impact on our team and we've heard that from them so much since we started putting these out for folks.
Host: What have you heard from the community about that campaign?
Rachel Lott: Do you have any more signs coming? That's what we keep hearing the most is more and more people wanting them. People asking us to bring them to them. If they're folks who maybe don't have a car or can't drive, some of our older folks in the community have said, can you drop one off? So we're trying to find staff who kind of live in nearby areas and can drop one off on the very rare occasion that we have someone like that. But people are just so happy to have them and so proud to display them at their homes, which has been really incredible. This is not something people are doing because they feel obligated. We're really seeing so many people saying, Oh, I need more. Oh my mom wants one. Oh, I want to get one for my neighbor. Everyone on my street wants one, can I come get 10 you know, we're seeing that happen. And it's just been so powerful because it is truly showing that reciprocal relationship between the support that we are providing our community in this time and the support that they're providing to us.
And even with our staff. You know, I was trying to think of what's a way that we can, you know, originally what I was thinking was can we find some sort of sticker or something we could wear on our surgical masks or something cool to be able to show our Hillsdale strong and are now more than ever a type of sentiment. And then we ended up coming up with these little buttons that say caring commitment community. Now more than ever, hashtag Hillsdale strong with our logo. So all of our employees are wearing these right now. So it's a reminder to us why what we're doing is so important. And it's also a reminder to our community members that we're here for them. The signs are a reminder that they're here for us too.
Host: Well Rachel, we appreciate you taking the time to share your great story about how you're engaging with the community and how you're having the community engage with your team to thank them and recognize them for all that they're doing. And thanks also for sharing this with your SHSMD member audience, because I think a lot of your peers out there are looking for innovative ways to do this very thing, and I think you've given them a great idea. So please visit shsmd.org to view more healthcare marketing and communication stories related to COVID-19 and thank you for joining us this afternoon. Rachel, thank you very much.
Rachel Lott: Thanks for having me.
Bill Klaproth: Thanks for listening and know that we are thinking of you during these unprecedented times. For general updates and resources on COVID-19 head to aha.org/COVID19 and visit shsmd.org for a collection of specific COVID-19 resources for strategists.