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Thursday, May 2
1:45–3:15 p.m.
Breakout Sessions: Set II

"A Tale of Two Hospitals: How One Safeguarded Its Reputation While Closing a Facility and Another Asked, 'How Can We Ensure That the Media Will Cover Our New Building?'"

When a hospital opens — or closes — a building, it poses challenges for public relations professionals to use the occasion to either promote the institution or face blunt criticism from the community and media. In this presentation, presenters from Franciscan St. Francis Health will relate details about the three-year planning effort involved in closing a historic, 100-year old hospital and moving its services to a newly-expanded Indianapolis campus. The plan involved coordinating carefully constructed communications to the community’s Spanish- and Burmese-speaking residents, hospital employees at both sites, city government and local elected officials, and area businesses.

On the flip side, Johns Hopkins Hospital recently opened a 1.6 million-square-foot facility to replace outmoded units and operating rooms with private patient rooms. Gaining positive media attention was a top priority for hospital leadership, but the media relations team wondered how they could effectively generate coverage. After all, other local hospitals had opened new buildings in recent years. However, they developed coverage opportunities and newsworthy events that resulted in a large number of local, national and international news stories.
 
Attendees to this session will learn:

• How to construct partnerships to ensure frequent and consistent communication among marketing, education, community and human resource stakeholders.
• How to create an integrated approach to explain a controversial operational decision, and use media relations and other PR tactics to gain acceptance among internal and external constituencies.
• How to leverage existing relationships and brand reputation to ensure the success of a project.
• Elements that help generate media interest, and how to navigate the demands of reporters with the need for patient privacy during the move to a new hospital building.

Speakers:
Ellen Beth Levitt, senior communications specialist, Johns Hopkins Medicine. Connect with Ellen Beth on Twitter.

Kelli Searles, APR, director of marketing and community relations, Franciscan St. Francis Health

Amy Hanna, ABC, vice president, Borshoff
 
Conference Preview: Check out Kelli and Amy's blog post, "Three Ways to Build a Solid Foundation for a Monumental Hospital Move."