Intro: The following SHSMD Podcast is a production of DoctorPodcasting.com.

Bill Klaproth (Host): This is the SHSMD Podcast: Rapid Insights for healthcare strategy professionals and planning, business development, marketing, communications, and public relations. I'm your host, Bill Klaproth. With me is Rob Whitehouse, Vice President of Marketing Communications at TriHealth, to discuss the gap between brand promises and patient experiences.

We're also going to touch on population health, when to know when you're ready to market a promise, and we're going to touch on service lines versus brand. Rob, welcome to the SHSMD podcast.

Rob Whitehouse: Bill, thanks for having me.

Host: Great to talk with you, Rob. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. I love this subject. So, let's jump into this: you can't market what you can't build. What are some of the biggest disconnects you see between healthcare brand promises, what we're selling, and the actual patient experience, what they're actually getting?

Rob Whitehouse: I think the bottom line tends to be looking at an individual health system is too often we're guided by what the competitor's doing. There's someone we want to be like. And as opposed to finding out who we are, what we're doing that consumers like that makes us unique and special, and focusing on that. And then, you can find yourself marketing a more unique space, which is going to help amplify your brand, as opposed to be trying to compete with others who are all clustered in one space. And we experienced that very recently in some brand work we did, if you want me to go a little deeper into that.

Host: Yeah, please do. I'd love to hear that.

Rob Whitehouse: So, a couple years ago, we decided to not do a full rebrand, like changing our name, but changing our position. Cincinnati's an extremely crowded market. Between Cincinnati and Dayton, there are seven adult health systems in a market that probably should have three. We have a traditional academic medical center.

We have another health system that sort of plays in that space as well, and likes to present itself in that space. And so, it results in a lot of desire, particularly from caregivers, to be playing in that high-end, high acuity, we've got the best doctors and coolest equipment kind of marketing.

And what we started to do with the brand research was really look into starting with our own people, talking about what do we do that's different. What do you do that our patients really react to positively? And what we found out is that we were very good in the accessibility and the high touch in the explaining what we're doing, just a lot of the warmth. People felt welcome. They felt heard and seen. So then, we went out and we looked at the consumers and what the consumers had to say about us and then, also, people that weren't coming to us in terms of what they're looking for in healthcare. And we found that we were actually offering a kind of care that was being desired in this marketplace, and we were delivering it fairly consistently. And then, we'll get to that in a moment.

But by coming up with a brand that met those areas, we came up with a brand that essentially the tagline is, "Be seen. Be heard. Be healed." And behind that, of course, is a whole bunch of expressions of what that means and how we bring it out into the different marketing tools. But it's very different, very more high touch than what you typically see. But as soon as we put it out there, it resonated with our own team members.

When we put it out internally at first, which we do inside-out marketing with this, I actually had people approaching me in tears with our launch saying, "You describe what I do every day." And I'm like, "Okay. I mean, we've hit that. Let's see if we hit the consumer." And the consumer response was extremely good. We've seen our brand scores going up significantly, our brand intent in particular through the roof in terms of people wanting this, because that's not what they were seeking and that's not what they were seeing from our competitors.

And so, what's cool is, again, we were just being true to ourselves and trying to find out how do we express that to consumers and having something that was real that I would say about 85% of the time, it's been real. What it's done is create a brand that people get excited about, but also then create some aspiration that we can continue to build on and get to that 100% part. So, it's been not only a brand to excite consumers, but it's been a brand that our leadership has used to really motivate those who aren't hitting the targets the way that we want to see them in terms of patient satisfaction, because that's what's moving the needle everywhere else.

Host: Yeah, that really makes sense. And I love how you said that, Rob. So, a lot of healthcare systems are guided by the competition, "Oh, we want to be like that," or, "We should be doing that too," kind of an attitude.

Rob Whitehouse: I've been in very other competitive marketplaces and it was just that. And I keep saying that if you let the competitor determine what your marketing strategy is, you've already lost. You've already lost. It's over.

Host: That is so true, because you do have to find out what you do. And I like how you said, "We asked, 'What do we do that our patients react to?'" So, that is being truthful then. So if you do market on that, that is what you do. You're not trying to sell this aspirational vision where inside the hospital, there's nowhere near that level that you're trying to reach. So, that's where that disconnect happens. Is that right?

Rob Whitehouse: That's true. And I think it's because, within healthcare, you know, we are appropriately focused on quality and high acuity and making sure we're providing the best care. But the reality is a lot of people feel that doctors and hospitals are on par with each other with a few exceptions. There's always the Mayo Clinics and the Cleveland Clinics out there. But generally speaking, they're going to feel quality is at a comparable level. It's what do you do that's different.

Now, there are those people who are going to want to go to an academic medical center because of what that means. That's fine. You're not going to compete with that if you're not an academic medical center. But what we're finding when the research is showing that there are a lot of other things people want. Access has always been an issue. But again, this whole thing of being understood and seen and heard has become a real big issue. It's a larger societal issue that is now manifesting itself in healthcare. And so, if we actually have that ability to convey that, that's a huge advantage for us. And we were downplaying it before. Now, we're playing it up.

Host: Well, you kind of pinpointed your culture. And then, you used that as well. So basically, brand follows the culture, right? So, that's kind of what you did.

Rob Whitehouse: Yeah, you're absolutely right. The culture is the brand, and your job is to express that, as a marketing person, not to try to change the culture because that's not your role. That's the role of senior leadership. And so, the fact that we were able to tie into it. And by the way, since we did this, I'd like to point out, since we did tie into the culture, it became something that my CEO was extremely proud of, and he touted it all over the place what we had done, because he saw what we did is not just marketing stuff. What he saw was, you're taking what I value, which is a culture that I've helped create, and you've turned it out to the public, and the public's responded to that. And so, think how that made him feel. This wasn't just marketing mumbo jumbo. It was actually tying into what makes us special and something that made the CEO very proud.

Host: Well, when you feel we do things differently here and you're able to pinpoint that, and then you're able to market that and you see how people react to it positively, that's got to make you feel good. It's like we work to build this culture. And now, at least we're getting it out there and people are recognizing that and reflecting that as well.

So Rob, I do want to touch on population health a little bit as well. We hear this term bandied about all the time. Population health is more healthcare language than consumer language, yet we still use population health. Consumers don't really don't connect with that language. Why do you think that is? And what kinds of messaging resonate more effectively with patients?

Rob Whitehouse: I've been struggling with this for over a decade in two different health systems I've worked with that have been in the population health model. And we talk about it in such an academic way that the general consumer just doesn't care. And I don't think we're ever going to come up with a great shorthand way of describing it, other than to continue to highlight the things that we're doing differently that all add up to population health, such as being proactive with screenings. Our patients understand that we do that more. They feel that's part of our high touch of being caring. But that's really population health, for us getting out there. And our patients are more likely to be screened for breast cancer, more likely to be screened for colon cancer. Our numbers are fantastic in that regard, and we're catching things earlier because of it. And so, it's working for us.

And I think that really is the lesson, is continue to talk about the experience, I guess, from the lens of population health without trying to do a lecture to the consumer on population health because they don't care. They want to know they're having an experience they want. They want to know that they have a doctor that cares about their health and is keeping them healthier without getting into the nuts and bolts of what pop health actually means.

And it seems to be moving the needle for us. Because when people talk about us online and they make those references to the care they had, they're describing population health without even knowing it, and that's just fine by me. They don't need to be able to write a dissertation on population health. Just know that we're doing something different to make their lives healthier.

Host: So for a health system trying to mature their population health strategy, in your opinion, what are some signs that they're truly ready to market that promise? And maybe what are some signs that they might not be there yet?

Rob Whitehouse: I think that you've got to make sure you have the infrastructure in place. And I mean operationally have the infrastructure in place, that you're going to be able to give those high-touch experiences where you have the navigators or the technology that's reaching out to make sure that, "Hey, you're due for this screening," or, "You're at risk for this. Did you know, like, this lung cancer screening's available to you because you used to be a smoker?" And having all that data in there that can be acted upon, whether you're using AI or whether you're using humans to do it, if you do not have the ability to be proactive with it, then you shouldn't be out there marketing population health. I mean, that's just a baseline in my opinion to be able to do that.

And also, have the services, the additional services that are necessary to make population health work in the way that you're getting to root causes. So, you need to make sure you have a good dietary staff that's a lot to deal with your hypertension and your diabetes. If you're not able to provide those services to manage it, then you're not a population health organization.

Host: Well, that makes sense, Rob. Like you said, operationally, you have to be ready to fulfill that brand promise before you go to market with it. That just makes sense. And then, let's flip the tables a little bit. What if you're in the situation where you're a healthcare marketer and you're being asked by people above you to promote your population health initiatives or your transformative initiatives before the organization has operationalized them? What if you're being asked to promote this and you know we're not ready for this yet? What's your advice to marketers in that situation?

Rob Whitehouse: Well, the only way you're going to win in marketing is making sure you have the research. And that's one of the reasons we do such detailed internal research along with consumer research. And the internal probably was the key here because, if externally they're telling you no one believes you're doing this, including our existing patients, there might be some hesitancy like, "Well, then marketing's not telling the story."

But if the internal research comes back and it's like our own people don't believe we're doing this, that's really bad. And so, the internal research is not something to be overlooked when you're doing the brand research, because they're the ones who will tell you it's like, "We're not doing that. We're not there yet." And then, you just push back with the data on them.

Host: Yeah, that makes sense. You can certainly prepare and win that argument more if you have that data as well to go along with it.

Rob Whitehouse: I was going to add one more thought, if you don't mind here. And that is, you know, when we say you're ready, I usually say 80/20 rule very much that feel like you're most of the way there. You don't have to be 100% there. And I alluded to earlier, the fact that it inspires them to get the rest of the way.

So once again, you don't need to be so hardcore that it has to be 100% when you have this survey back from your team members. It could be when you get to a certain directional point that it feels like three quarters of the organization is doing it, then I think you're at a good spot to go. And then, you can move the rest through the marketing efforts. But earlier than that, you probably would be not in a good position in the market.

Host: So, I love that 80/20 rule or even three-quarters of the way. So, that really makes sense. So Rob, let's talk about service lines versus brand a little bit. So, healthcare organizations often market individual service lines very aggressively.

As we know, service line marketing drives volume, brand marketing builds trust. How can systems balance service line growth goals while still building a cohesive brand experience?

Rob Whitehouse: Yeah. That's where you've really touched on it. It is an interesting struggle that goes on in that. One of the things that we do is we look at primary care or the entry points for population health, which are PCPs, but also GYNs. And in some cases, even cardiology to a certain extent can be an entry point for a lot of folks. We promote those more heavily than the other things. So if you look at, I guess, a traditional model, you probably have a slight undercurrent of things that are always going on with brand, but then you have these big spikes of the service lines that, maybe for this period, we'll be doing ortho, and then we'll be doing heart, and then we'll be doing neuro. That kind of model is pretty typical. We kind of flip it in that putting a lot more in the entry points going across the entire year. But then, we will have these smaller spikes of our service lines throughout using the same language, using the same themes, the whole look and feel, with something that would be more focused towards cardiology or for cancer or for one of the service lines.

So, we do spike like the traditional model of service line marketing looks, but it is concurrent with what's constantly going on in the entry point marketing. And then, what we're doing is putting more effort into educating our primary care physicians, to make sure that the referral patterns are going right, that they're armed with what they need in order to get a patient, convinced that they should go see one of our oncologists or one of our cardiologists or whatever, because that's the way the population health model works. You're trying to get them in. You're trying to put together a care plan for them and for a lifelong experience and trying to keep them within the network so you can manage that care better.

So, really educating the referring physicians have been a big role for us in doing that, but then also keeping a certain amount of air cover of marketing. So, they're not having to carry it all themselves, but we do make sure we have those spikes up there. So, people see our cardiology advertising. They do see all of the different service lines. But it really is then up to the doctors, the referring physicians to carry them the rest of the way.

Host: So, do you then connect both the individual service lines into the broader promise of the brand that you were talking about before? Is that what you do?

Rob Whitehouse: Very much so. I'll give you an example. We did a cancer campaign that was after our brand launch. And it was Ask Fearlessly. And,so , if our overarching brand easily summarizes be seen, be heard, be healed, here you are in cancer saying, "Ask fearlessly. Don't be afraid to ask the questions. We're listening." So, all the service line campaigns, they have their unique spin that are meant for the service line, but you can easily connect them back to the master brand.

Host: Absolutely. You can certainly fulfill that brand promise within each individual service line. Rob, you've been around, for sure, and doing a great job right now at TriHealth. When we talk about you can't market what you can't build? How often do you see this problem in our industry?

Rob Whitehouse: I think it's very common. One of the things that we make a mistake as marketing folks, if something works for us in one market, and then we move to another health system, then we're going to try to replicate that in the new market. and maybe that's not what this system needs, it's not what this market needs.

And I see that quite a bit that there are individuals saying, "This worked here. So, let's just plant it over here and it'll work." And that's not how to do it. You've got to get in, sit down, listen, learn the culture, find out what they're all about, find out what the market's all about and the dynamic.

This is my fourth health system now, and I was even a consultant for some other health systems at times. And every one of them was different of how we played it out because of the uniqueness of each system and each marketplace.

Host: Yeah, that's kind of a classic leadership fail, trying to come in with a completely different team and market makeup, trying to reproduce what you did and what worked somewhere else. Facets of it can work. But by and large, like you said, if you don't come in, listen and learn and adapt and adjust, usually, it doesn't work.

Rob Whitehouse: Right. The only thing that you should be able to repeat is the process and how you got to the answer, not the answer.

Host: Rob, this has been fascinating. I love this conversation. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Rob Whitehouse: Well, thanks for having me.

Host: You bet. Love to have you back on again. Really good stuff. Once again, that is Rob Whitehouse. And don't forget, SHSMD Connections is approaching. Remember to register at shsmd.org/education/annualconference. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels, and please hit the subscribe or follow button so you get every episode. And to access our full podcast library for other topics of interest to you, visit shshmd.org/podcast. Once again, thanks to Rob for a great interview. This has been a production of Doctor Podcasting. I'm Bill Klaproth. See ya!