Lamplighters are more than just awards

By Shawn Mawhiney, Regional Director of Marketing, Hartford HealthCare 

When I received the annual Lamplighter award early deadline alert last week, it felt like it was just yesterday that my Hartford HealthCare colleagues and I had finished off our entries for last year's NESHCo conference.

It was a memorable year, and we went right up to the deadline submitting marketing and communications campaigns for The William W. Backus Hospital, Windham Hospital and our Behavioral Health Network. What I remember most isn't how many awards we won - what stood out for me was all the teamwork that went into creating our entries, and the things that we learned along the way.

For me, that's the point. Yes, winning communications awards feels really good, and it is nice to receive external recognition for all the hard work we put into telling the stories of our organizations throughout the year. But there are many other valuable benefits to participating in the Lamplighter process, including:

I urge everyone to submit Lamplighter award entries by the February 2 deadline. It's a chance to highlight your great work, and hopefully an opportunity to learn a few things along the way. I hope to see you at the awards dinner in Boston!

Click here for the full Call for Entries.

In Case You Missed It: Webinar Recap
 Patient Engagement v. Patient Education: What's the Difference?  

By Alison Merrill, Senior Manager Corporate Communications, Lahey Health

NESHCo hosted a webinar on December 4 titled "Patient Engagement v. Patient Education: What's the Difference?" led by marketing expert Jamie Verkamp, CSO at (e)Merge. The informative webinar highlighted the importance of not only educating patients, but also ensuring that patients are engaged-and stay engaged.

Statistics have shown that patients are not fully engaged in their care. Patients ask an average of 0-2 questions when meeting with a physician, and more than half of patients leave the physician's office without an understanding of what they were told to do. Studies also indicate that patients want to be more involved in their care, and it's up to health care providers to make this as simple as possible for them.

Verkamp suggested the following advice for using new communications and marketing tools like portals and social media to increase patient engagement: 

• Form a committee-the marketing or communications department cannot be solely responsible for engaging patients. Form a committee made up of frontline staff and other staff members who interact with patients frequently to help guide messaging.
• Provide expert advice on your website-more and more patients are turning to the web for medical information. Position your organization as an expert by providing answers to common health questions on your site.
• Avoid jargon-use patient-friendly words like "online care center" rather than words like "portal," which many patients do not understand.  
• Understand your audience-if patients use Facebook frequently, create an appointment system right on your organization's Facebook page. Use posters to educate patients while they are in lobbies or waiting areas.
• Share frequently-telling patients something only once is usually not enough to get their attention or buy-in. Share information frequently over multiple channels.
• Stay current, but don't get ahead of yourself-if you don't have the infrastructure to support a mobile app or an online appointment system, don't create one. Only tools that work well will contribute to increasing patient engagement.

Jamie Verkamp is available as a resource on this topic. She can be reached at [email protected] or (877) 362-8464. 

All webinar recordings and slides are available in the Members Only section of the NESHCo website in the Resource Center.

Announcing the 2015 Webinar Series

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

A discussion with author Sheri Fink, MD 

Thursday, January 29, 2015

9-10 am

BE OUR GUEST! Non members please join us for the first webinar of the year. Enter the discount code GUEST on the payment page to join us for free. 

Buy the book here 
(You do not have to read the book to participate in this webinar)

Join physician and author Sheri Fink, MD who will discuss her New York Time best seller Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospitalfor this riveting discussion. After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths. Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing.

About the Presenter 

Sheri Fink is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (Crown, 2013), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction, the Ridenhour Book Prize, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Fink's news reporting has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Magazine Award, and the Overseas Press Club Lowell Thomas Award, among other journalism prizes. A former relief worker in disaster and conflict zones, Fink received her M.D. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her first book, War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival (Public Affairs), is about medical professionals under siege during the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. She is a correspondent at the New York Times.