| The Contemporary Referring Physician's Toolkit By Dan Dunlop, Principal, Jennings At NESHCo's 2015 Conference, Laura Pierce (Tufts Medical Center) and I shared our perspective on referring physician marketing. We used a case study that detailed the development of a marketing toolkit that was developed for physicians affiliated with Tufts Medical Center and its Floating Hospital for Children. These tools would eventually be deployed within practices, and made available through a microsite designed specifically to meet the needs of referring physicians. The goals of the program included:
- Creating and building awareness of the Tufts Medical Center and Floating Hospital for Children brands; this included familiarizing patients with the two hospitals.
- Communicating quality to referring physicians.
- Helping the physicians feel confident when making a referral.
- Driving patient volume and in-network referrals.
- Marketing specific service lines.
Above all, we wanted to make it easier for affiliated physicians to refer patients to Tufts Medical Center and Floating Hospital for Children. One of the keys to creating a marketing program that achieved all of those goals was to develop a collaborative working relationship between the physician relations and marketing teams. Developing the referring physician toolkit involved a slow, thoughtful process. The steps included:
- Development of a strategic brief.
- On-site interviews with affiliated physicians and practice. administrators at practices throughout eastern Massachusetts.
- Presentations to practice organizations.
- Presentations to the physician advisory council.
- Continually testing ideas and soliciting feedback from affiliated physicians and practice staff.
What we ended up creating was a flexible solution that could work in most any environment. The practices we were marketing to varied significantly in size and design. Some had large waiting areas while others were very small with no space for marketing materials. With that in mind, we created a program where the referring physicians could select the tools that worked best within their practice. The elements of the final referring physician toolkit included:
- Referring physician microsite.
- Waiting room posters (11" x 17").
- Branded dry erase boards for exam rooms and waiting areas.
- Patient-focused static cling signs for any surface in the waiting area.
- Phone number reminder clings for back-office areas that promoted the referral phone numbers for each hospital.
- Branded post-it notes and note pads.
- "Let Us Be Your Guide" patient brochures for each hospital.
- A quality brochure for physicians.
- Branded document templates for use by the physician liaisons.
- Special business cards designed to promote the physician microsite.
The microsite content was developed to make the referral process easier. When visiting the microsite, a physician or staff member could download:
- "Let Us Be Your Guide" patient brochures.
- "Did You Know?" fact sheets about each hospital.
- Talking points to be used when making a referral.
- Maps and directions to the two hospitals.
- Quality brochure designed for physicians.
- Fact sheets about specific clinical programs.
- Fact sheets featuring specific groups of specialists.
Given that Tufts Medical Center is a quality leader in Boston, an entire page of the microsite was dedicated to sharing quality data with referring physicians. Additionally, the practice could order toolkit materials directly from the microsite (dry erase boards, posters, brochures, etc). In the end, elements of the toolkit were delivered to more than 400 practices across eastern Massachusetts. Primary care providers who participated in the program reported that patients were more receptive to the notion of being referred to a specialist from Tufts Medical Center or Floating Hospital for Children because of the presence of the campaign within the practice. As a result, the primary care providers have requested that the campaign be refreshed and rolled out for another year. Dan Dunlop is a frequent NESHCo speaker and presented on this topic with his client Laura Pierce of Tufts Medical Center/Floating Hospital at the 2015 NESHCo Spring Conference. To contact Dan, click here. |
