Podcast — Managing 88 hospitals in 29 states

Takeaways

A wide geographic footprint doesn’t come without its challenges 

• Spanning 29 states, LifePoint Health needed to keep a constant pulse on the state initiatives affecting each of its markets. This required a clear and constant line of communication with the compliance team.  

• The marketing and communications team’s greatest challenge was tracking and responding to changes across markets. For instance, South Carolina was the first of their markets to have a COVID-19 case, and therefore needed different communications than other markets at the time.  

• LifePoint was able to take learnings from each of its markets to iterate and refine marketing efforts.  

   

Getting standardization and localization to work in harmony 

• Local market leaders and corporate LifePoint Health strategists worked in tandem to produce effective results across state lines. 

• Focus on service line marketing vs. branding depends on the competitive nature of the market. In more isolated markets with less competition, branding is less of a priority, but in highly competitive markets, branding takes the stage. 

Earning that coveted “seat at the table” 

• COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of marketing and communications teams in achieving health system objectives. Now, it’s up to us to demonstrate our strategic worth by supporting organizational initiatives. 

• Maintaining marketing’s position as a strategic partner calls for targeted hiring initiatives, alignment on strategic plans for the market, and executive buy-in. 

• When communicating with executives, make sure you’re speaking to the value points they care about. For instance, CFOs and CEOs will likely care more about the bottom line and ROI, whereas CNOs may care more about clinical quality.