NESHCo 2025 Annual Conference

Don't miss this opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of talent acquisition marketing to enhance your own campaigns! This presentation focuses on the inner workings of a highly successful talent acquisition marketing campaign for the largest healthcare system in Central Massachusetts. This session will delve into the marketing strategies and tactics used to address workforce challenges and provide valuable insights related to:Campaign Development: Discover how creative messaging played a crucial role in supporting workforce stabilization.Strategic Channel and Market Selection: Learn how to choose the right channels and markets to boost engagement effectively.Campaign Performance Metrics: Understand the metrics used to measure the success of the campaign and how they can be applied to your own initiatives.Navigating Operational Challenges: Plan ahead by hearing some of challenges the team faced when trying to create and measure a seamless candidate journey.Speakers, Johanna Webb, Marketing Director, UMass Memorial Health, Lori Albert, Marketing Manager, UMass Memorial Health and Reem Nouh, Chief Strategy Officer, Adams & Knight, will share their expertise and experiences, offering practical advice and actionable takeaways.

Join Emerson Health's Media Relations Manager and WCVB TV Channel 5 Boston's Executive Producer, as they explore the dynamics of creating healthcare news and feature segments. This engaging session will provide insights about media opportunities, including how healthcare news stories are identified, developed, and shared with the public. Attendees will learn strategies for compelling storytelling, how to establish strong working relationships with reporters, identify and prepare spokespeople, and market the resulting story. Learn what reporters need when they cover health stories and best practices that result in accurate, impactful stories to educate prospective patients and the general public.

Podcasts offer a powerful platform for healthcare organizations to expand outreach, educate audiences, and foster empathy. In this session, Kurt White and Mary Wilson, hosts of Unravelling, the Brattleboro Retreat’s mental health podcast, will share their journey of creating a compelling and impactful podcast.From concept to launch, attendees will learn practical tips for getting started, establishing a dynamic host relationship, and collaborating with producers to ensure high-quality content. The session will cover strategies for selecting meaningful guests, preparing thoughtful interview questions, and navigating the editing process to shape engaging episodes. Participants will also gain insights into leveraging social media to amplify reach and engagement. Whether you’re considering launching a podcast or looking to refine your approach, this session offers advice to help you connect with your audience and make a lasting impact.

Communication with consumers is rapidly evolving. In industries outside healthcare, personalized, 24/7 communication models have become the norm, creating “always-on” experiences that meet consumers where they are. Healthcare systems, however, lag behind these industries and have much to learn from their approaches to consumer engagement. By adopting proven strategies, health systems can close the gap and build more meaningful, seamless interactions with their patients.Despite this opportunity, many health systems fall into the habit of purchasing the 'shiny new toy' before developing a clear vision for how to deploy the technology and interact with consumers. This often results in underutilized tools, lost value, and frustration for both administrators and patients.Geisinger Health sought AVIA, a digital transformation organization, to address a critical opportunity: sunsetting their legacy SMS texting solution and selecting a modern platform to align with their broader communication goals. Through a collaborative process, Geisinger partnered with AVIA to engage and educate key stakeholders on:- Market Insights: Understanding the competitive landscape and emerging communication trends to inform decision-making.- Needs and Challenges: Identifying and prioritizing functional and technical requirements while addressing pain points with the legacy SMS solution.- Use Cases: Developing a comprehensive set of use cases to ensure technology capabilities aligned with Geisinger’s organizational goals.- - Vendor Evaluations: Participating in demonstrations with leading vendors to evaluate their ability to meet Geisinger’s needs.The process narrowed the choice to two finalists: one vendor specializing in SMS communication and another focused on omnichannel orchestration. Geisinger leveraged AVIA's expertise and market insights to select the best solution and ensure the vision was socialized across the enterprise.This session will share best practices, challenges, and lessons learned from this journey, providing actionable insights for health systems navigating similar transitions. By developing a clear vision and involving stakeholders early, organizations can harness the full potential of modern communication platforms to deliver a seamless, consumer-centric experience.

Two years ago, MIT Medical’s leadership came to our communications/marketing team with a challenge: Rebrand from MIT Medical to MIT Health within a single calendar year. This rebrand was more than a simple name change - it was an opportunity to reintroduce our practice to a community forever changed by the pandemic. And so began the challenge of carefully sifting through the identity and legacy of a century-old brand. Our charge: convince a patient community with long-held institutional memory to think beyond their traditionalist, exam-room focus, and instead energize and excite them to embrace the idea of an organization that offers a full breadth of health and wellness services. In this presentation, you’ll get practical advice on undertaking a huge project with a small team (without your day-to-day work getting in the way). You will learn techniques for building positive relationships with vendor partners and for giving efficient art direction to agencies. Most importantly, you’ll get great ideas for making your stakeholders, staff, and patients feel seen, supported, and energized.

In our digital-first landscape, healthcare systems rely on user-friendly, accessible, and accurately updated websites to connect patients, providers, and stakeholders. Emerson’s Digital Marketing Specialist will take attendees through the full process of launching a website for a complex health system, focusing on the unique challenges and best practices from an in-house Marketing team’s perspective. From initial stakeholder alignment and understanding compliance requirements like HIPAA and ADA accessibility to platform selection, content strategy, design, testing, and project management, this session will offer actionable insights to navigate the intricate balance between technical functionality, patient-centered design, and organizational goals. Join to learn about real-world tips and examples in advocating for the patient and the health system every step of the way and being efficient and resourceful while working with an agency partner, especially in today’s world of emerging AI.

Through a lively presentation, Helayne will share unusual and unexpected challenges and highlights of her career in healthcare marcom. Each of these opportunities culminated in critical lessons learned. These experiences will touch on a variety of areas of marcom, including: crisis public relations, HIPAA, traditional mass media marcom, branding, social media, employee recruitment and communications.- Proactively responding to a series of medical errors which led to the death of two patients who were given nitrous oxide vs. oxygen during routine cardiac catheterization procedures- Response to international media inquiries following the horrific invasion at the home of a beloved physician in which his wife and daughters were murdered and he was injured- How response to an apparent suicide note from a former patient prevented the arrest of an innocent citizen on homicide charges. - How an unusual creative approach resulted in hiring 100 nurses in 100 days.- Big bombs-- how neglecting to elicit input/feedback resulted in failure, as well as recovering from technical glitches - Unusual methods of brand building

AI-powered search tools like Google AI Overviews and SearchGPT are transforming patient behavior. Gone are the days when click-through rate and website traffic ruled. This practical session equips healthcare marketers with actionable strategies to adapt, optimize for AI, and start driving results today.

What if behavioral insights could improve how healthcare professionals optimize their treatment choice based on a holistic view of the patient? Ensuring patients receive the right medication given their physical, behavioral, and psychological needs is essential for improving adherence, outcomes, and early risk prevention. This session explores how market insights and targeted messaging can shift providers’ prescribing habits from one-size-fits-all to patient-centric care. Through case studies spanning diverse therapeutic areas, we’ll show how research solutions like behavioral segmentation and persona development illuminate ideal patient profiles. We’ll share activation strategies to equip providers to make more informed decisions. You’ll leave the session inspired to drive sustainable improvements in care by understanding the person behind the prescription.

This is the story of Signature Healthcare facing the unimaginable. On February 7th, 2023, a 10-alarm fire broke out at Signature Healthcare’s main hospital. With smoke and fumes in the building and no electricity, the hospital made the call to evacuate. Brockton Hospital evacuated 162 patients when the electrical fire broke out. In all, 91 ambulances, 26 fire trucks, and nearly 300 emergency personnel responded. The impact of the fire was severe. Because the fire started during a shift change, extra staff were already on site to help care for and move patients, all without electricity, elevators, lights, computers, or phones. Fifteen hours later and with no fatalities or injuries to staff, patients, or firefighters, the fire was out, and all the hospital’s patients were safe in other locations. It was truly a heroic achievement. Reopening wouldn’t be a matter of a few months; it would require replacing the entire electrical system as well as other infrastructure for the 250,000 square foot building. Reopening would take over a year - dramatically impacting 460,000 area residents and 2,700 potentially displaced hospital employees. How would Signature respond? The immediate challenge was to communicate with and care for local residents, patients, and Signature employees while the team worked to reopen the hospital. At a time when Massachusetts was facing the Steward Health Bankruptcy and the Compass Medical closure, Signature was overcoming adversity and fulfilling its mission. Out of tragedy, Signature would quickly adapt, offer new services, and expand its market area. In response to this crisis and during the hospital's 18-month closure, Signature improved access to care.

With all the technology we have for relaying messages these days, the value of a well-written story, pitch or social post cannot be overstated. At the same time, it can be challenging to create consistent and engaging written content when your marketing communications team is full of colleagues with different experience, education and work backgrounds. As with any high-performing team in business or even sports, there needs to be some coaching.While that may sound daunting, Hartford HealthCare has developed a way to cultivate better, more consistent writers who can contribute to everything from leadership speeches to web copy to media pitches. Using a variety of methods including writing workshops, weekly writing and style tips, a department style guide, and one-on-one sessions that identify and capitalize on individual strengths while addressing and developing weaknesses into new strengths, Hartford HealthCare was able to developed a bench of confident writers to support the system’s communications needs.The result has been an equalizing of writing responsibility, valuable consistency to the system’s collective voice, and solid ROI in the form of patient visits, event attendance and requests for preventive health information.Two members of the Hartford HealthCare team will present the system’s unique approach to writing coaching. Susan McDonald is a seasoned print journalist who was tapped as the team’s first-ever writing coach, and Maggie Werner is one of the team’s newest members who was able to develop her writing skills to reflect Hartford HealthCare and AP style while showcasing her creativity and interview skills.

Explore how UConn Health, an academic medical center, strategically integrated email and digital marketing with custom landing pages to acquire self-reported, HIPAA-compliant consumer data used to nurture interested consumers on options for specialized brain and spine care. CRM plays a pivotal role in tracking the patient journey from initial interest through actual encounter data. The health system has successfully demonstrated ROI by marketing channel, even digital efforts outside of their CRM.

Featuring Young At Heart Chorus. Check them out here: https://youngatheartchorus.com/