MAHPRM SHOW-ME EXCELLENCE AWARDS
2017 Call for Entries
Narrative Template
Category (See Call for Entries)Physician Relations/Communications Projects
Division (See Call for Entries)
A. All entries judged in one division
Entry Number (See Entry Form)
SM727
Entry/Project Name
Transformational Pediatrics Podcast Series
Entrant’s Name and Organization
Shawn Arni
Project Goals and Objectives
· Provide timely, relevant content to physicians
· Strengthen the reputation of Children’s Mercy physicians with referring providers in our service area
· Strengthen the reputation of Children’s Mercy and its physicians with pediatric subspecialists on a national level.
Statement of Opportunity
Children’s Mercy Kansas City is an independent, non-profit, 367-bed pediatric health system, serving half a million patients each year from across the country. Children’s Mercy is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals” and has received Magnet recognition three times for excellence in nursing services. In affiliation with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, our medical staff of more than 750 pediatric subspecialists and researchers are actively involved in clinical care, pediatric research, and educating the next generation of pediatric subspecialists. And our leadership in pediatric genomic medicine and clinical pharmacology is driving research and innovation in neonatology, heart care, cancer treatment and other subspecialties to transform outcomes and provide answers for children here and around the world.
The Children’s Mercy strategic plan has goals directly related to growing market share regionally and growing reputation on a national level. Our research as well as anecdotal and third party research indicated that physicians want information not marketing. We also learned that reputation is most effectively driven by peer to peer communication. We already do a significant amount of direct mail to both regional and national physicians.
Video had been tried in the past, but results varied and production was expensive. A physician-to-physician podcast series was proposed to deliver concise, timely content that is meaningful to providers. The ability to deliver timely content on monthly basis and showcase more topics and providers was also appealing as it would allow us to demonstrate the breadth and depth of our expertise.
Project Implementation
Children’s Mercy partnered with RadioMD to establish a physician podcast series. Unlike any other in the RadioMD catalog at that time, our podcast would be the first designed specifically for other medical providers. Since the target audience was unique and smaller than a general consumer audience, we didn’t have any benchmarks to evaluate potential listenership.
Each month the Children’s Mercy Medical Marketing team identifies up to five new show topics. Topics are chosen that align with hospital strategic priorities and specific service line marketing priorities. We develop the program titles, write the program descriptions, and provide talking points and questions to RadioMD, which produces the segments. RadioMD schedules the physicians, does the interview, and posts the podcasts. Children’s Mercy staff chose one of RadioMD’s radio hosts who is also a physician to do the interviews. The Medical Marketing team then reviews each podcast for approval before it is posted.
The podcasts are branded as “Transformational Pediatrics” in keeping with our overall brand messaging. Podcasts live on the Children’s Mercy site (http://www.childrensmercy.org/podcasts) via RadioMD widgets. The interviewed physician’s (or other provider’s) photo, short bio, program description and transcript are available with the podcasts on the site. Listeners may read the transcript, play the podcasts live on the site, or download it for playing later. Podcasts are also posted to iTunes and iHeartRadio.
Promotion has varied based on audience. On the national level, some podcasts were used as part of the call to action for online advertising. Others were used as content on the ad campaign landing pages. Regionally, podcasts have been used to supplement other marketing channels, in addition to having links to new podcasts in our monthly Progress Notes e-newsletter. Specific podcasts have also been singled out for promotion on marketing materials at tradeshows, within e-newsletters, on fact sheets, and by our Physician Services liaison team.
Cost is $25,000 a year for RadioMD services.
Results and Evaluation
In 2016, the podcasts generated more than 6,000 site visits; more than 11,000 page views; 2,500 plays on our site and more than 2,800 downloads (separate from plays). Because of the format, our physician response has been excellent as our doctors treat it like a media interview (one over which they have some control!). iTunes and iHeartRadio analytics were not available.
Research conducted with regional providers in 2016 indicated perception of Children’s Mercy as the best hospital (anywhere) for complex care/surgical procedures increased from 41.5% to 45.9%. Overall impression of Children’s Mercy remained steady, even with two emerging competitors in the market, with 99.1% rating the hospital as Good, Very Good, or Excellent. Knowledge of clinical programs and services also grew about 3% with 51% rating their knowledge as Excellent or Very Good. 92.8% of local/regional respondents who had listened to our podcasts rated them Good, Very Good or Excellent.
Tracking of podcasts plays and downloads shows spikes coinciding with our national advertising. National reputation, as measured by U.S. News and World Report scores, shows our reputation trend line going up in nine of the 10 specialties rated (based on surveying in February 2016). We won’t have new results until June 2017. We are also conducting our own reputation study with national subspecialists in spring 2017.
Podcasts are still a niche in terms of use by physicians, according to available research. Planning is currently in progress to determine how to more effectively and consistently promote the podcasts.