NESHCo 2025 Annual Conference

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.

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.

When a major organization undergoes a rebrand, the immediate instinct is often to start fresh with a complete technical overhaul. But what if you could achieve a dramatic brand transformation while preserving your valuable CMS infrastructure? In this session, we'll explore how Brown University Health executed a successful digital rebrand by strategically updating the presentation layer while maintaining the robust foundation of your existing content management system. We'll dive into practical approaches for evaluating what to keep, what to modify, and how to implement changes efficiently without disrupting content operations.

Healthcare consumerism is here. People have more options than ever before, and the way they utilize healthcare has evolved. In this session, we’ll share how healthcare organizations can understand how and why people make decisions using Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) theory. By understanding the needs and motivations behind healthcare decisions through JTBD, organizations can create differentiated experiences and strategies that meet those needs better than competitors, driving acquisition and loyalty.-------[More Detail] Healthcare consumerism has never been more real. People have more care options than ever before, and the way they utilize healthcare has evolved. Consider:- The average person splits their healthcare amongst 4-5 healthcare provider brands each year. - 58% of Americans reported that they are likely to seek non-emergency care from a retail pharmacy- Out of 10 industries measured, healthcare has the highest expectations for service delivery, but only 40% say the experience meets expectationsWhat are the implications of this? Despite a focus on brand in healthcare for the last 20 years, there is very little loyaltyThe front door to health systems is getting less trafficTraditional healthcare organizations are losing patients to new entrants, competitors, and inactionIn this session, we’ll share how healthcare organizations can understand how and why consumers make decisions by utilizing Jobs-to-be-Done theory.Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) is a theory of progress. People “hire” products and services in order to reach desired outcomes and make progress in their lives. When we understand what progress they are trying to make, and the desired outcomes they are trying to achieve, we will understand their job-to-be-done. By understanding the needs and motivations behind healthcare consumer decisions, organizations can create differentiated experiences and messaging strategies that meet those needs better than competitors, driving acquisition and loyalty.