From the January/February 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Yet, media feature coverage of this sort is episodic and will not provide enough coverage for an effective, sustainable DTC outreach. Especially when this involved medical devices with new applications, hospitals need to develop a multidisciplinary approach with an emphasis on consumer and patient education. Making arrangements with local media including community and health websites for physician authored Q&A's, advice and regular health columns to share expertise and capabilities with consumers is an effective outreach and education method. Such exposure can also serve to drive consumers to hospital websites for additional information which can be made increasingly rich through multimedia and more in-depth discussions. Video can be particularly effective showcase for medical technologies. Consumers respond well to video content that informs and offers and element of entertainment. Commentary from clinicians and patients who have benefited from a diagnostic or therapeutic device add to the appeal. Concurrently, hospital programs, medical groups and individual clinicians enjoy the opportunity to get exposure before the larger market. The general public has grown accustomed to information delivered via multimedia and has high expectation about production value.
Hospitals would do consider an investment in quality productions as a secondary investment in the marketing of that technology.
These and other strategic communication activities not only provide a platform to discuss the institution's medical device technology,
hospitals also benefits by:
- Demonstrating and underscoring their commitment to investing in the latest, most efficacious medical devices which give consumers comfort and confidence
- Demonstrating a commitment to consumer and patient education
- Positioning the institution and clinicians as thought and practice leaders
- Raising the institutions profile, reputation, brand awareness and prestige which has far reaching impact from attracting consumers to assisting in building physician group affiliations
Dan Conley is a Principal at Beacon Communications.
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