GreyMatters

 

The Latest Hospital Digital Marketing Articles

GreyMatters is your hospital digital marketing guide, with articles on hospital digital marketing best practices, trends, updates and more.

 

What Healthcare Marketers Can Learn from a Moon Launch

This article was written for Greystone.Net by Jessica Levco, a freelance healthcare writer and event strategist.

When Pamela Landis, senior vice president of digital engagement at Hackensack Meridian Health, watched NASA’s Artemis go to the moon, all she could think about was that this was the most disciplined communications operation she’d ever seen. 

photo of Pamela Landis

Whether it was the live feeds, the Mission Control chatter, watching the four astronauts on their media tour (before and after) or reading social media posts from NASA’s PIOs, she felt inspired to take what she learned from NASA and bring it to her team.

And in October, she’s taking it to the #HCIC26 stage.

As our keynote speaker, Landis will use the “moonshot mindset” to reframe how organizations should approach the patient experience. Drawing on years of digital leadership and real-world experience, she’ll share how to create a mission-driven strategy that resonates throughout hallways, clinics and boardrooms.

NASA set a big goal and if you were listening to Mission Control, there was always a process and steps,” Landis says. “It was very regimented. And although they had failures with Challenger and Discovery, they learned each time and kept moving forward.

Landis admits that marketers and communicators aren’t naturally wired for regimented processes. But NASA shows what’s possible when everyone is focused on the same goals. Here’s the goal she wants our 800+ attendees to focus on: Make the case for science and medicine. Enough with the patient stories!

“Patient stories are sweet and tug on the heartstrings, but they’re not long-lasting,” Landis says. “It’s an art form, but if you can focus on science and medicine, you can start to build a community of people who understand why this work matters. This is an important thing to do because there’s a lot of mistrust with our healthcare system right now, across political and demographic lines."

Need a little NASA inspiration on how to explain complicated topics? Here are a few communication pieces that stood out to Landis during the launch:

Patient access is where your hospital’s mission breaks down

Landis told a story where a woman called into Hackensack’s access center this May because her child needed to see a pediatric gastroenterologist. The first available appointment wasn’t until August, which was too far out. The scheduler transferred to an office where nobody picked up. She called a different number and was transferred to the adjacent surgical office. Someone from that office walked over to the first office to make the appointment, and eventually, the child was put on the waitlist to get an early appointment.

When Landis found out about this, she came up with a list of questions to make sure this doesn’t happen again:

  • Why doesn’t this doctor have new patient slots?
  • Why wasn’t anyone in the practice answering the phone?
  • What technology or processes can be put in place to improve access?
  • Who do we partner with to improve the access?
“Even if you have a process in place, you always have to check to see what’s working,” Landis says. “You aren’t one and done. You don’t create a process to improve the product and then hope it all works. You need to check it again and again.”

One way to improve the digital experience is to partner with your clinical and operations teams to improve the product. At NASA, you see the mindset of it being one team focused on one goal. Throughout the Artemis 11 mission, the NASA staff was testing and retesting and coordinating with all the various departments. 

“In healthcare, you’ve got to partner with operations and say, ‘I know you guys have a lot going on, but this is what our patients are saying about how hard it is to make an appointment. We want to partner with you to make it easier.'” 

Come join us in Orlando, October 25-28. Sign up today!