John Looney earns Evans Houghton Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement

John Looney, executive director of marketing and communications at Lahey Health, was awarded NESHCo's Evans Houghton Memorial Award for lifetime achievement at the recent annual conference. 

The award was established by NESHCo's Board of Directors to honor the memory of Evans F. Houghton, one of the Society's founders. This lifetime achievement award honors an individual for exemplary performance and significant contributions in the field of health care public relations; selfless dedication to other practitioners without any thought of personal gain; and boldly challenging themselves and their peers to excel, all while maintaining the highest standards of conduct and professionalism.

"John is a seasoned professional who has mastered almost every aspect of health care communications practice," said May Kernan, a member of NESHCo's board and the 2014 Evans Houghton Award winner. "He has been an innovator and thought leader for the new age of health care and, perhaps more important, he has served as a teacher and mentor to others, always ready to give generously of his time and talent.

While at Jordan Hospital (now Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Plymouth), Looney was instrumental in the passing of Kayla's Law, a bill that requires all Massachusetts health clubs to have an automatic external defibrillator on site. In his current role at Lahey Health, he is responsible for leading all communications and marketing efforts for Lahey Health and its member hospitals. These efforts include corporate and interactive/web communications, media and community relations, and marketing and creative services.

Looney is a dynamic leader with a demonstrated ability to drive organizational change and success through engaging constituents, and was part of the team that led Winchester Hospital through its recent affiliation with Lahey Health. Prior to working for Lahey Health, he was the director of communications and public affairs at Winchester Hospital from 2008 to 2014. He received his bachelor's degree in marketing and organizational development from Boston College, a master's in management from Bridgewater State College, and completed a certificate program in public relations at Emerson College.

"I am incredibly honored to have received NESHCo's Evans F.  Houghton Award," Looney said. "I am passionate about health care communications, and there is no greater honor than recognition by one's peers. I could not be more proud to work with my talented staff at Lahey Health and such wonderful colleagues at NESHCo."

Six Email Tips to Help Stay Out of Trouble 

by Linda Shelton, Tufts Medical Center

Email privacy is a myth. Your work emails belong to your employer and may be discoverable in a legal case. You may have signed a form when you started your job acknowledging your employer can look at anything on their computers at any time. There are news reports nearly every week about a company's or US government branch's (or baseball team's) network being hacked. Your personal email could be vulnerable to hackers or hijackers, even with strong passwords.

Here are six tips that may save embarrassment or worse:

1)    If you wouldn't say it to the person's face, don't write it in an email, even to a third party. It could become public or be shared by the recipient. It may cost your job, like it did when the hackers who hit Sony Pictures released executives' derogatory emails about celebrities. Deleting or recalling an email doesn't work, there's a copy somewhere once you press send.

2)    Still have something on your mind? Say it instead of writing it. If you have something not nice to say to or about a person, say it in person or pick up the phone. (If you can't bring yourself to do that, see #1 above.) While it made for a hilarious episode of "The Good Wife" when the law firm's partners' snide emails about each other were hijacked and made public, it would be less funny in real life.

3)    Don't write a sensitive email in your email program. Upset about something? Need to vent? Get it out of your system, but write it in a non-email program, like Word. That way, you can't send it accidentally. BEFORE you put into an email, see #4

4)    Use the 24-hour rule. Wait 24 hours before you send any sensitive email. You may change your mind, edit it or decide to handle it a different way when your emotions calm down.

5)    Give the person the benefit of the doubt. Be careful about reading tone, intent, malice or slight into an email. Maybe they were in a hurry when they were typing, autocorrect took over or they're just a bad speller. If you need clarification or are concerned, talk to the person, preferably face-to-face.

6)    If the email trail gets longer than one or two short exchanges, set up a meeting or talk by phone. It will save all parties time, effort and potential misunderstandings.

Most of these can be summed up by thinking how you would want to be treated, then extending that consideration to the person at the other end of the email.