The Arizona Heart Institute (AHI) is one of the leading institutions in the United States for cardiac care and innovation.

Banahan.Communications, a medical marketing agency assisted in AHI’s success through contributions in both the operational and medical marketing areas. Activities included changing AHI’s infrastructure and support systems and acting as an effective liaison between AHI and affiliated hospitals. A medical marketing agency also identified and attracted symptomatic patient volume with highly effective marketing and educational programs.

Highlights included:

• Coordinated ABC Television 20/20 Heart Test Program
• Developed and built the Heart Transplant Program at St. Joseph’s Medical Center
• Orchestrated AHI transition from St. Joseph’s Medical Center to Humana Hospital, Phoenix
• Developed satellite cardiac facilities (rural markets)
• Recruited and hired physicians and medical personnel
• Originated medically illustrated ad campaign
• Marketed First International Heart Symposium
• Marketed Celebration of the Heart Event
• Secured BlueCross BlueShield of Arizona contract for AHH

“The Arizona Heart Institute represented one of the first alternative means of entry for patients seeking cardiac care. Initially the Arizona Heart Institute was not embraced by many in the medical community. Today, however, it is widely recognized as one of the nation’s most innovative facilities.”

John Goodman,
from The Future of Cardiology -
The Master Strategic Plan

When faced with insufficient surgical and interventional volume, what steps can a hospital take to prevent foreclosure?

Implement a grass roots medical advertising campaign using retirement communities’ internal newspapers to increase self referrals. And offer educational classes and promote the schedule and guest physician lectures.

The facility was Lutheran Heart Hospital (now named Banner Baywood Heart Hospital) during a critical stage of its development.

In six months time, the Heart Hospital became the authority and main resource for educational information and cardiac care. The turnaround was dramatic and a medical advertising agency was the driving force for this turnaround.

How do you take a $5 million hospital based heart program to gross revenues exceeding $47 million annually? It starts with understanding your market and leveraging healthcare consulting experts that have done this before. To get results like this in three years, you pull in all the resources and make system wide changes. Here is a quick list of what was done to achieve this rapid revenue growth in just three years:

• Consolidation of all cardiac services
• Creation of a cardiac product and service line
• Development of separate Heart Institute within Hospital
• Education of management to coordinate program services
• Development of an Institute philosophy for staffing, education and physician relations
• Analysis of physician practice habits and step by step recommendations for reduce costs
• Developing and implementing a more efficient patient scheduling system
• Recruiting new cardiologists and cardiac surgeons
• Developing new interventional cardiology programs as well as prevention and wellness programs
• Initiating cooperative ventures with independent rehabilitation facilities
• Initiating chest pain clinics and mobile echocardiography services in rural markets
• Successfully educating and informing hospital’s Board of Trustees of strategic planning goals
• Moderating physician focus groups to identify long term strategic plan
• Participating in Northern New England Cardiovascular Disease Study Group
• Initiating Nursing Grand Rounds
• Enhancing cardiology continuing medical education programs
• Creating affiliation agreements with regional and community hospitals
• Developing Physician Advisory Board and directing Cardiac Task Forces
• Measurably improving image of New Hampshire Heart Institute with the public, payers, physicians and staff
• Creating award-winning educational marketing, advertising and public relations program
• Designing marketing strategies for primary, secondary and affiliate markets
• Educating physicians as to their practices’ benefits from the marketing effort
• Designing and implementing media buy

Developing tracking methods and conducting market research analysis“The campaign increased awareness of the Heart Institute by 43% in 13 months. Cardiac surgery procedures increased by 28%, while angioplasties jumped 35%.”

Edward Palank, MD
Former President and CEO
New Hampshire Heart Institute

This case study is one of many success stories from Banahan.Comunications | Healthcare Consulting.

Strategic planning is the fundamental core of healthcare consulting. Successful implementation requires research, planning and successful implementation to achieve the desired results. Assisting health care organizations today is more important than ever and it truly is a back to the basic to bring about success; establish service lines, implement new programs and market key items.

The first stages of strategic planning can include:

• Market research to determine an organizations position in their target demographic.
• Demographic analysis to define strategic and tactical integration with cultural needs.
• Mass attitudinal research to assess audience preferences and opinions.
• Mapping current and targeted markets which creates visual representation of service opportunities.
• Analysis of competitors and industry leaders to determine an organization’s position in the market.

Strategic implementation tactics can include:

• Business plans to convey project goals, time lines and implementation tactics.
• Marketing plans to raise awareness and utilization of key services.
• Capital assessments and budget development.
• Facility and service review to determine capabilities and potential volume.
• Volume projections to determine return on investments.

Tracking and measurement can include:

• Tracking tactics to determine volume change in utilization of services.
• Measurement methods to assess hard and soft return on investments.

Put the best healthcare consulting strategy to work for your business!