Health care PR measurement

My friend Lee Aase from Mayo Clinic and I have a good laugh when we talk about all the people coming out of the woodwork expressing an interest or concern about social media measurement. The first thing that comes to our mind is: are you currently measuring your traditional PR or media relations programs? If so, how? With audience impressions, clips, numbers of calls you get from reporters? Nothing wrong with those if they are just part of your measurement. Still, there are often specific ways to measure health care PR that make more sense and have more meaning.

So step into my WayBack Machine and lets journey back to a simpler time when newsrooms were fully staffed and Facebook was just becoming more than a twinkle in the eye of a couple of Harvard students. I’m talking about 2006 of course!

In fall of 2006, I had successfully pitched a story on hip resurfacing to the Associated Press, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://www.jsonline.com/features/29217269.html) and a local TV station. To determine how much, if any, of this coverage actually turned into patient visits and hospital charges, I worked with the orthopedic surgeons’ administrative staff to get them to ask each new patient who called, visited or emailed how they found out about the doctor’s services. The office further tracked these patients from initial point of contact to appointment and surgery, if it occurred. The office told me they could identify 28 patients who came to the office based on seeing information from the media. That would be a significant victory in itself but patient visits alone were not enough.

So, I asked the hospital finance department to track these 28 patients and tell me how much revenue the doctor and the hospital received from this. Separating out the physician’s revenue from the hospital, I discovered that the hospital revenue netted from these patients covered my fees to the hospital for the entire year.

The exercise gave me insight into why more PR measurement doesn’t take place: it’s difficult, time consuming and costly. However, if you can do it and your department supports you, you’ll get excellent return on your measurement investment.
To sum up:
1) Measure based on something significant to your hospital. In my client’s case, that was hospital charges.
2) Work with the doctor’s staff as early as possible to get them to buy in and track patients
3) Report back your findings to your boss and use it in your elevator speech the next time someone asks you what you do. What’s more impressive: telling someone you write news releases or that your efforts led to the hospital garnering more than twice your salary?

I'd love to hear how you measure your traditional PR efforts. What works for you and your clients and organization?

Livestream, Ustream, we all stream today! How Four Chicago Women Got a Jump on Self Broadcasting Trend

The last two years or so, gurus, mavens, evangelists, ninjas have been populating the blogosphere with articles about how social media is going to replace the way we market, the way we communicate or the way we broadcast. They’ve held up Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Wordpress and other platforms as potential worthy successors to mainstream media. And while I’m a big advocate of these social media platforms, I’ve yet to be convinced we can throw out our TVs and cancel our newspaper subscriptions. These new platforms are great but the biggest Facebook Fan page usually can’t hold a candle to the lowest rated TV newscast in most markets.

So, where does that leave us? Well, some hearty pioneers have been blogging or starting media or news gathering cooperatives. Still others, like one group of Chicago woman, started a blog called Chicagonista and then recently launched a Chicagonista Live talkshow, sorta like a poor woman’s “The View,” on Livestream.com. The women who make up Chicagonista Live are Nancy Loo, M.J. Tam, Beth Rosen and Duong Sheahan. All four women met via Twitter and it stands to reason that I found out about the show from an MJ Tam tweet. According to Tam, the monthly show started in January and last week’s segment was the fourth show. The group has future show dates booked out for the next few months.

Both LiveStream and its relative, Ustream, are interesting platforms that allow individuals and virtually any organization to create their own channel or broadcast show and recruit or attract viewers using the social media aspects of the sites as well as individual Twitter and Facebook pages. Perhaps you caught the live Ustream version of #journchat a few weeks ago that Sarah Evans hosted with several CNN reporters/producers at South by Southwest?

Ustream bills itself as “the leading live interactive broadcast platform that enables anyone with an Internet connection and a camera to engage their audience in a meaningful, immediate way.” These websites have serious implications that communicators should be considering for the communications needs of their clients and organizations.

It was interesting to see how the Chicagonista Live hostesses used the new technology to create a talk show that is similar to shows that one might see on mainstream television but at a fraction of the production costs. Here is the link to the show: http://www.livestream.com/chicagonista

I watched the April edition that was broadcast from a Chicago-area studio and found the conversation quite lively, spanning such diverse topics as Apple’s new Ipad, opening day for the Chicago White Sox, Chicago area violence, Chat Roulette, sexting and slutty prom dresses (doubly horrified on these topics). The women reacted with appropriate suburban moral outrage at these more aberrant topics while waxing on about the revealing aspects of HD video on Hollywood stars at the Oscars.

On the pro side, the Chicagonista Live group covered a lot of ground and read some on air suggestions from people who tweeted in, making it more responsive and interactive than a typical show. When the show gives voice to one of the women, it can be compelling and funny, but when it breaks down into a chatfest, it’s more difficult to hear what was going on.

Tam believes that sites like Ustream and Livestream represent extensions of broadcast technology but perhaps not replacements.

If you have a comment about the Chicagonista Live show, you can comment via twitter using the hashtag #chicagonista.

Planmeca and trade press links

The dental trade press does a lot of cool promotions with their advertising clients and I thought I'd share this cross link promotion one dental trade publication, Dental Product Shopper, is running with one of my clients, Planmeca USA.

Planmeca ProMax

Chicago Morning Shows Accessible to Outsiders

Podiatrists from the Illinois Podiatric Medical Association represent in front of Channel 7/WLS-TV in Chicago on Friday morning, March 11th.
Unless you are a chef, pet owner, celebrity or fashion show producer, you don't have much of a shot at getting your calls or emails returned from Chicago TV morning producers. The good news is that for some organizations, you may not need to completely rely on these sleep-deprived sentries to get morning TV coverage in Chicago.

Witness the effort of a hearty band of podiatrists in town for the Midwest Podiatry Conference a couple of weeks ago. My client was able to recruit about two dozen colleagues, print out a sign from Kinko's and march up to the Channel 5 and Channel 7 windows that face inward towards the studio. In both cases, staff from each station came out and talked to our group. All we needed to do was hand them the news release that explained that the podiatrists were in town for the meeting and collecting used shoe donations for Haiti earthquake victims for the group Share Your Soles.

Before you undertake this effort and pass up the chance to sleep in, here are a few tips that will help you decide if this is right for your group or client:

1) Are you a non profit group engaged in something altruistic or not blatantly profit seeking?
2) Do you have a group large enough to make a good showing? The podiatrists probably would have canceled had they not recruited a group of two dozen members.
3) Get a colorful sign. Kinko's printed the IPMA banner for $140.
4) Timing is everything. Know when the stations are on and off the air and allow enough time to move from one to the other.
5) Have a news release. Staff from both stations asked for it and Channel 7 read portions of it on the air.

Should you invite a politician or celebrity to speak at your event?

U. S. Senator Richard Durbin interviewed by Chicago media after his speech to the Midwest Podiatry Conference on March 12, 2010This picture illustrates what happens when politicians or celebrities speak at your event. It's great that the media comes out to cover them, but sometimes, the speakers divert attention from your group or event because of controversy. In this example, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin gave a nice speech about health care reform and podiatry but he was asked after the speech about the donations he received from alleged check kiters who were arrested that morning.

Unfortunately, we can never predict what news will break during the day of an event so when we invite high profile speakers to our events, we have to accept some risk that they will attract media seeking comments on breaking or controversial news that day. In this case, Sen. Durbin was asked about his reaction to news that his campaign had accepted donations from a Chicago restaurant owner who was arrested that day for passing bad checks. To his credit, Durbin answered the question in a straightforward manner and was not evasive, ensuring that at least from his perspective, the story would not drag on for days.

Question for PR pros: how can we better ensure that media will still use our stories even when juicier news is more available at our events?