The Doctor Is In

ANOTHER HUMDRUM night? Maybe it's time to go out and hear some live jazz in a garden conservatory setting. But where?

How about the hospital?

It wouldn't have been our first notion either, but Atlanta's Emory Healthcare is using direct mail and radio to promote such events and draw attention to Emory Crawford Long Hospital's recent $300 million renovation.

The campaigns are part of an effort to position Emory Healthcare's facilities as the place to go for treatment, notes Una Hutton Newman, the health system's senior director of marketing.

Her department mails more than 400,000 pieces and 100,000 unique campaigns annually, reaching community members as well as patients and physicians.

Emory Healthcare owns three hospitals, two of which are Emory University Hospital and Emory Crawford Long, both 500-plus bed medical/surgical facilities; and a geriatric complex called Wesley Woods Center, which has a outpatient clinic and hospital, nursing home and assisted living home. Also under the health system's umbrella is a 35% ownership of Emory Adventist Hospital, and an affiliate agreement with Hospital Corporation of America for facilities like Emory Johns Creek Hospital (opening in January 2007) and Emory Eastside Medical Center.

There's also Emory Clinic, a practice comprised of some 700 physicians who are part of the Emory University School of Medicine, and Emory Children's Center, a pediatric specialists group that teaches at the University and offers patient care.

For better than 10 years, Emory Healthcare's marketing arm has worked with Fulfillware for database management and services. The Atlanta-based firm recently helped Emory overhaul its welcome kit, which is mailed to between 100,000 and 200,000 new patients each year, says Fulfillware president Henry Lewin.

Every new patient of one of Emory's physicians gets a eight- to 10-page kit with a welcome letter from the medical director and COO, along with a brochure detailing things like billing information, where to park, maps, relevant phone numbers, etc. The hospital network's information systems department routinely downloads the new patient roster and sends it to Fulfillware, which completes the mailing.

In the past, offices from each of Emory's 30-plus clinical areas — such as ophthalmology, pediatrics or internal medicine — were doing this individually. New patients might get multiple mailings, if, for example, they were scheduled to see an obstetrician/gynecologist and a primary care physician. The mailings were not only duplicated, but they weren't standardized, so packets from some departments looked less professional than others. Now, Newman says, first-time patients get a more professional and streamlined initial impression of Emory.

Newman says the hospital hopes events like its Thursday afternoon jazz concerts will attract some of the younger, hipper folks who've moved to Atlanta over the last decade during its revitalization. She estimates her department spends about $60,000 a year on postage and $150,000 on printing. Fulfillware also does other work for Emory, such as an employee newsletter, which comes out of a different budget.

The return on investment for event mailings is determined by attendance at the actual event, and how that might reflect on inpatient and outpatient revenue. Events can range from the hospital's 100th anniversary celebration, which took a year of planning, to monthly seminars that could be set up and promoted with 30 days' notice. Creative is handled by two in-house graphic artists with the help of freelancers.

Emory's call center handles 120,000 to 130,000 calls per year, ranging from consumer calls to calls from physicians, nurse recruitment, an employee access line and event registration. Time of day, day of week, and whether direct mail drove the attendee to register by phone or Web are analyzed, Newman says.

All Emory mailings coordinate with efforts in other media, such as spots on National Public Radio and outdoor advertising. At press time, a revised site for Emory Crawford Long was expected to soon go live. But Newman says increased reliance on the Web and higher paper and postage prices haven't led the hospital to cut back on direct mail. “We've probably done more mailing this year than ever,” she says.

For example, Emory recently used Prizm cluster and demographic analysis to evaluate its patient database and compile a list of 10,000 women in greater Atlanta with incomes of $200,000 and up who could afford to pay for cosmetic surgery. The ROI for that campaign, set to finish at the end of June, wasn't available at press time. Ultimately, it will be judged by the number of people who came in for a procedure.

“Sometimes it's hard with healthcare. We typically do ROI analysis three and six months after a campaign,” she says. “And sometimes there's a delay, even though the CEO would like to hear, ‘And on day two of the campaign we've covered all our costs.’ Of course, that's not the case,” she laughs.

But not all of Emory's marketing mailings target patients; doctors are a big audience, too. The Cardiac Case Studies newsletter goes out to some 10,000 cardiac surgeons. ROI is judged by the number of new referrals from doctors to the Emory Heart Center.

“The idea is to continue to position Emory Heart Center [doctors] as clinical experts for high-end procedures,” says Newman.

Surveys routinely are done by physician liaisons to get feedback from other doctors about the mailings. But asking them to send back a BRC isn't the best route, Newman claims.

“With docs, that won't work. You've got to [make] phone calls to their office.”

Lewin says many of Emory's physician mailings could be considered customer care efforts. While most pieces go to doctors in Emory Healthcare's system, some also target medical professionals in other practices in the greater Atlanta area, as well as nationally.

“A lot of these mailings are highly personalized, perhaps reflecting the docs' specialty,” he says. “It's the nuts and bolts of lettershop work.”

Newman's department recently promoted a physician appreciation event at New Georgia Aquarium. The mailings, says Lewin, were highly personalized, and coordinated with materials distributed at the event itself. Smaller events also are promoted to doctors, such as “lunch and learn” meetings for specialties like radiology, or breast cancer screening clinics.

Additionally, mailings are done on behalf of doctors to help facilitate transitions when offices are opened, closed or moved, Lewin says.

A heavy amount of list management goes into the physician-focused mailings, according to Lewin. Files are coded down to doctors' sub-specialties to make sure the proper audience in the medical community gets the communications.