Bill Klaproth (host): This is a special podcast produced on site at SHSMD Connections 2025 in Dallas, as we talk with speakers and session leaders direct from the show floor. I'm Bill Klaproth. Today we're talking about navigating thought leadership in a politically charged environment, a challenge many healthcare communicators face today.

Joining me are Shannon McCormick, Vice President of Communications at Media Source, and Jeb Phillips, Manager of Executive and Public Affairs Communication at Nationwide Children's Hospital. Shannon and Jeb, welcome.

Shannon McCormick: Hi, Bill. Thank you so much for having us.

Host: Absolutely.

Jeb Phillips: We're really happy to be here, Bill, thanks.

Host: Shannon and Jeb, thank you. This is really a very interesting topic. Shannon, let me start with you. So, communications professionals are under tremendous pressure right now as trust in healthcare and science has eroded. What are some of the biggest challenges you're seeing when it comes to guiding organizations through this increasingly politicized climate?

Shannon McCormick: Well, Bill, it is an interesting time to be working in healthcare communications. Things are changing rapidly. The biggest challenges, there are quite a few. I am very lucky to work with different healthcare organizations across the country. So we do see a lot of different things, and there are some common themes. I would say polarization of previously neutral topics. Issues that once seemed apolitical, now feel politically charged, and those require more nuanced communications around them. So if you're following healthcare communications at all, the conversation around vaccines is different, recently around certain medications, when to take them, when not to take them, things like that.

And just a lot of thought needs to go into them in then raising a lot of new questions. Also the speed and the volume of both misinformation and disinformation. An emotionally charged, say, social media post, really any kind of emotionally charged content travels really fast and it really sticks. So working against that, against the misinformation and disinformation is an interesting space for healthcare communicators.

And then there's the internal dimension of it all where I would say, in almost every business, this is not exclusive to healthcare. The employees often mirror the divisions we see in society, right? I mean, people work at companies and communicators have to try to manage alignment reassurances where they can, and that is creating a challenge too.

Host: Thank you for articulating that so clearly. Very interesting when you say there's all of this polarization of what was once neutral topics and how those things are becoming politicized now. Then you also said speed and volume of misinformation and disinformation. Certainly social media has ignited that and then the internal dimension as well.

That's really interesting. So Jeb, Nationwide Children's has developed a really smart personalized approach to thought leadership. Can you share how that strategy came together and what makes it different from a traditional PR or visibility effort?

Jeb Phillips: Well, we started thinking along these lines probably in 2017. There were some challenges then about the future of Medicaid funding, the future of the children's health insurance program, and our hospital felt that children's voices or a pediatric perspective maybe wasn't being heard as clearly as it should have been. So at that point we started trying mostly with our CEO to place opinion pieces, to have him speak out about those issues.

That led us to where we are now, which is this individualized thought leadership program. What I would say really sets it apart from traditional PR or visibility campaign is that this is not just about getting attention. Thought leadership at its best in healthcare helps advance the field. It helps shape and guide what people should be doing out there.

It also gives families and children in our experience, some authoritative information that they might not be getting other places. So there is a benefit to the hospital in publicity, in public exposure, but largely we consider it a part of our mission of helping children's health.

Host: Well, Jeb, that really sounds like a really, smart strategy as you talk about that, it really does make sense. So, Shannon, one of your learning objectives focuses on identifying and engaging a diverse group of thought leaders.

What's your process for helping healthcare organizations recognize who those voices should be and how to prepare them for public engagement?

Shannon McCormick: It's an important part of it, right? Because different voices do carry different messages. If you just have one voice out there trying to communicate everything, I think you can lose some of the authenticity.

No matter what size organization you are, you need to stop and ask yourself, is the right person, the right, either the voice on this, a lot of times people will put their CEO or their president out there, and that's usually right on certain topics. It's probably not right on every topic. So we encourage people to look at their organizational mission and values and really just say like, who should be the one on this? And that can come from, we'll get into, we have a like Venn diagram that we look at at Nationwide Children's, and it really gets into the expertise, the passion, and the experience of the person. And we really work with their, that thought leader to help them develop and refine their platform.

And it's a very intentional process. And Jeb, I, think you would say like, I think some of them have found their own voice in some ways, their public facing voice, and it's helped us figure out maybe what some of them will be comfortable saying and what the hospital's message should be in a deeper way to help drive policy and change sometimes.

Jeb Phillips: In our case, we have developed six thought leaders at Nationwide Children's Hospital, each who have different lanes. Some who are medical experts, some who are behavioral health experts, some who are population health experts, and in the process of developing what we call their thought leadership platform, as Shannon said, we do help hone their voices.

We learn more about them, more about what they are passionate about. And then they also begin to understand how they can best communicate. So it is really a two way street. It is not just marketing or communications coming to them. They begin to understand how important it is too.

Shannon McCormick: And they have such rich expertise in certain areas that their contribution to the program is, wonderful and they have this voice to share, you know, on a greater stage and they can really start to guide and impact the field as a whole well beyond just the voice of one hospital. They can make a real difference.

Host: And you can tap into that experience.

Shannon McCormick: Absolutely.

Host: And then hone that message. So Jeb, as you were talking about aligning these leadership voices, how do you do that? I, imagine that has to be tricky sometimes when you're talking about sensitive or politically charged topics.

How do you make sure the internal stakeholders from the C-suite to the physicians are aligned on messaging and tone before speaking publicly. How do you do that?

Jeb Phillips: It is tricky. You are right about that. What we have found is it is important to have a strategy ahead of time. That can be a decision tree, an algorithm, some defined way of deciding how you are going to speak and what you are going to speak about. That's really important because it lets people know that this isn't haphazard. We're not just doing this opportunistically. We're doing this because we think it matters to the mission of our hospital. It is not that different from the idea of a differential diagnosis in medicine. You look at these circumstances, you look at the message, you look at the messenger in a deliberate way, and then from there you decide what the message is.

Host: What do you do if you have leaders that, let me say, are on sort of opposite sides of the aisles? How do you navigate that?

Jeb Phillips: I'm going to say that at a Children's Hospital, that might not be as difficult as it is in some other places. We are an apolitical nonprofit organization. We say our only party is the party of children. And it is very clear from our leadership all the way down, that what they care the most about is the health and wellbeing of children. So there actually is pretty good alignment in our organization about what that is and what that means. Now, there are nuances. We have discussions, but generally speaking, we are all pointed in the right direction or in the direction that we believe is the right direction.

Shannon McCormick: I do think processes and transparency about how you're making the decisions and how communications is advising can really help in situations where leaders are not aligned. Because if things seem arbitrary or you are picking this solution because maybe they suspect that's your belief, or somebody, that person has a louder voice or something like that, that's not going to fly.

That's just going to create problems down the road. But if everybody understands what the policies are and what the process is, you can get a lot farther. So if you have kind of that infrastructure built up front for the organizations where maybe there isn't as much alignment right now, I would recommend transparency on how the decisions are being made and, open discussions about that. And I think that you will at least get to understanding faster.

Host: Well, listening to other viewpoints, hearing people out will help you get to that understanding a lot quicker. And Jeb, I love how you said the only party we're a member of is the party of children. I love that.

Jeb Phillips: It's true. We, that is not just a slogan. It is true. It is in the decision making process, the first thing is, does this help children? And then we go from there.

Host: Yeah. Very well said. So, Shannon, as you talked about earlier, misinformation, disinformation, rapidly changing policy shifts, social media debates. How do you counsel organizations to remain agile and proactive rather than reactive in the kind of landscape we're in right now?

Shannon McCormick: Yeah, you have to stay agile and proactive. That means continuously monitoring what's happening in the world, right? Policy and media. We have a team putting together daily briefings that go to executives, not just on, what's being said about their organization, but about their peers and in the world.

Little digestible nuggets of things because things are changing on the daily and you really have to be on the lookout for the issues that could happen so that we aren't caught off guard. Jeb talked about some scenario mapping and decision trees. These things are good to have, make the plan for the thing that you can kind of anticipate and hope you never have to use it. But it's better to do some of the thinking ahead of time then when the issue rears its head. Where you can break down silos in communications, Jeb will talk about this in our session, but where you can get government relations and fundraising and public relations and your medical voices all on the same page and you can increase trust now, right now, before a crisis happens; do it because when you get into an emergency or a situation where you need a rapid response, it's much harder to build that foundation in those situations. And frankly an issue is likely to come up. It just is.

Host: Yes, definitely. And since you mentioned your session, a recording of Shannon and Jeb's presentation will be available to members during the SHSMD Connections virtual conference.

So Jeb, I'm thinking about metrics, how you measure all of this since you've rolled this out. How are you measuring success, both short term and long term, and what metrics or outcomes have been most meaningful to your team?

Jeb Phillips: We have short term, medium term, and long term metrics. From the beginning, one of the things that we thought would be the best measure of how we are doing is how many incoming, how many inbound requests are we getting for our experts that we don't have to pitch?

Are people starting to understand that our experts are experts? And that when Children's Health comes up in the public sphere, Nationwide Children's is one of the resources that they should turn to. That is a long term goal. It is now bearing fruit for us, but it took some time to get there. In the short term, something that worked really well for us are these very sort of small lift wins.

One of them, Shannon and I have worked on this together. Is nominating our thought leaders for awards. That does a couple of things. One, it validates in the field, in the space that they are leaders, that they are being recognized, and two, they sometimes like to see that they are being recognized themselves.

So it builds up some credibility for the program. It occasionally it allows us to go to them and say, see how this worked? This was important. And it makes them feel better about this instead of just a visibility thing. It makes them think that it makes them understand that there really is an impact here.

Host: Well, this has really been an important discussion in the times that we live in right now and how to navigate all of this, so thank you both. This has really been important. Before we wrap up, I'd like to get final thoughts from each of you. Shannon, anything else you want to add?

Shannon McCormick: Well, it's such an honor to work on this with Nationwide Children's. They are a large pediatric hospital and they have such a commitment from leadership on this, and I imagine some people listening will think where would I start on this? They may not have as big of a team. They may not have the infrastructure in place and I would say it's okay to start small. You can take small steps toward a thought leadership program and they will make a difference. So start small and measure small wins. And I think you'll be surprised at how quickly that that would bear fruit.

Host: You stack up those small wins and it really does add up to something much bigger.

Shannon McCormick: It really does, Bill.

Host: Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense.

And Jeb, how about you? Final thoughts?

Jeb Phillips: I just want to reiterate something that we've talked about here a little bit, that when we conceptualize thought leadership, we aren't just thinking about PR, we aren't just thinking about visibility. We're thinking about can this have an impact for the people that we care the most about; children and their families?

And so having that mission lens on this, I think makes us more successful than just trying to get attention for ourselves.

Host: Very well said. Jeb and Shannon, thank you so much.

Shannon McCormick: Thanks for having us.

Jeb Phillips: This was great, Bill. Thank you.

Host: You bet. Once again, that is Shannon McCormick and Jeb Phillips. And as I mentioned, a recording of Shannon and Jeb's presentation will be available to members during the SHSMD Connections virtual conference. Please make sure you check that out. This is really important information that Shannon and Jeb are offering, and again, in the times that we live in right now, this is really important info. And if you found this podcast helpful, and please, how could you not, please share it on your social channels? And please subscribe so you get every episode, chockfull of goodness, people from healthcare strategists, marketers, topics and solutions. To access our full podcast library, visit shsmd.org/podcasts. This has been a production of Dr. Podcasting. I'm Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening. See ya.