Great Read for This Week...
Brandon Edwards
Seasoned healthcare executive in marketing and managed care services
Hot off the press! We’ve just published a new piece identifying the five core issues for providers post-COVID-19.
This white paper is the result of some phenomenal collaboration between ReviveHealth and Dentons, the world's largest law firm and a long time trusted partner. It explores some of the biggest upcoming market shifts providers should anticipate — from virtual care to physician-hospital integration — and also introduces a new concept you'll hear more of in the coming weeks: the No Normal.
What’s on our minds this week:
BUSINESS OF HEALTHCARE
When Malcolm Gladwell shows up at a major healthcare event asking which sport is most like healthcare, we're all ears. The answer? Today our industry is more like basketball, which cultivates the strongest, most high-profile players; whereas we should be more like soccer, where the team is only as strong as its weakest link. According to Gladwell, COVID-19 has revealed the pitfalls of the "strong link" approach in our industry, and this is a crucial moment to reevaluate our priorities and the sustainability of our system. We buy that, and find a broader applicability of the metaphor as well: whether in work or personal life, it's time to strengthen our foundations.
— Shannon Hooper, Executive Vice President
HEALTH SYSTEMS
Geisinger Health System is always one of the leaders in innovation, so it's no surprise they are taking this "unprecedented opportunity" to innovate at a rapid pace. By activating workgroups to examine eleven core areas — determining if activities should start, continue, or stop — the system is accelerating areas that provide more value. From increasing medication adherence through a mail-order pharmacy to continued remote working to increase access to top talent, there will be no return to normal or the way things were.
The pandemic also exposed the failure of the fee-for-service system, and Geisinger makes a renewed call for a meaningful shift to value-based care to enable a better, healthier system no matter what may come.
As health systems are moving to post-COVID operations, it's important to use this opportunity not just to go back to the way things were, but to really evaluate how to improve your system to benefit patients, providers, and staff.
— Elizabeth Musson, Senior Vice President, Communications
BRAND BUILDING POST-COVID-19
There is no denying it. Hospitals across the country are in financial trouble. To help themselves recover, they need to restore patient volumes as quickly as possible. While reputation campaigns that drive loyalty and patient preference are more critical than ever, the ways to go about it in the post-COVID-19 landscape are drastically different.
Before we get into the solution, a level-set on the problem: people are so terrified of going to a hospital that they’re delaying care — even for life-threatening conditions. ReviveHealth survey data show more than a third of patients won’t feel comfortable returning to the hospital until three months after the restrictions lift. And the stories are even more shocking than the numbers — a recent New York Times article said transplant recipients are turning down organs when they become available, and cancer patients are refusing to come in for lab work.
There are many complex dynamics at play with this public health crisis, but as communicators, we need to examine how our fundamentals have changed...