Iowa Health System – Des Moines, Iowa
“National News Coverage to Build Reputation”
Situation
Iowa Health System is one of the state’s largest health care providers with services including nine hospitals and physician groups of nearly 450 doctors in 31 communities across Iowa. It annually serves nearly 150,000 individuals in its emergency rooms and more than 65,000 patient admissions. One of the state’s largest employers, IHS employs nearly 11,500 people.
Fulfilling Iowa Health System’s mission – “to improve the health of the people and communities of Iowa” – the organization built leading edge “centers of excellence” including cardiac surgery, human gene therapy research, oncology, orthopedics, physical rehabilitation and telemedicine. These services were known in the local communities where they are located across the state. However, awareness was low statewide and outside Iowa – regions from which the organization must attract patients, highly qualified employees and world-class physicians.
Simultaneously, IHS was under financial constraints and budgets for PR staff and operations were tight. Shrinking Medicare reimbursements coupled with shorter patient stays and fewer overnight admissions had put IHS at a crossroads.
PR Action
IHS executives retained Hanser & Associates to implement a cost-effective program of media relations focused solely upon national news media. Hanser & Associates created a communication strategy to get IHS’ centers of excellence on the “must cover” list for national media doing stories on medical innovations, pioneering surgical procedures, advanced therapies and quality healthcare administration.
Result
Iowa Health System’s statewide healthcare leadership was reported in a yearlong series of national news media articles. Feature stories exceeding 12 million total impressions were read by the organization’s key target publics – hospital administrators, managed care executives, physicians and patients in Iowa and around the nation. These included Advance for Providers of Post-Acute Care, Healtheon/WebMD, Healthy Living, Managed Care, Managed Healthcare News, Medical Imaging, OnHealth, PRN ProfNet Briefs, The Wall Street Journal, Woman’s Day and Women’s Health Access.
Hanser & Associates delivered extraordinary value to the client. The modest budget produced news media value exceeding $964,770, delivering value equal to 26 times the client’s investment (ROI of 26:1).