For years, St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany, New York, has held a strong local reputation as a low-cost provider of excellent health care.

A 442-bed tertiary care hospital and member of Catholic Health Care East, St. Peter’s services are used by physician practices and ancillary medical facilities throughout Northeastern New York.

New York State leads the nation in deaths from cardiovascular disease, the number one cause of death in the United States.  According to the American Heart Association, more than one million Americans die annually of cardiovascular disease, with care and treatment beyond $350 billion annually.

At St. Peter’s, patient safety and successful surgical results were among the factors that helped the hospital’s Cardiac and Vascular Center to be named as a national Top 100 cardiovascular hospital for eight of the past nine years. Only ten of the nation’s 6,000 acute-care hospitals earned this distinction as many times.

St. Peter’s is also the only hospital in New York State to be named a Distinguished Hospital for Patient Safety for each of the past four years – ranking it in the top three percent of hospitals for patient safety each year.

Five years ago, our strong position in local awareness provided the foundation for a marketing campaign to increase physician and patient awareness about St. Peter’s cardiovascular expertise and services throughout Northeastern New York.

Where we began
To help us develop a robust marketing strategy, a cooperative effort at St. Peter’s linked the hospital’s Senior Leadership Team, the management and physicians of the Cardiac and Vascular Center, and the Corporate Communications department. This partnership led St. Peter’s to retain Banahan Communications | medical marketing to develop a strategic marketing plan, and a subsequent education and marketing campaign.

Based in Phoenix, Banahan has a solid track record of aiding large health care organizations to optimize market position.  The firm specializes in strategies and action plans that create awareness and enhanced recognition of broad-based cardiovascular programs.

The intent of our campaign was to solidify St. Peter’s position as the leading authority in cardiovascular services in Northeastern New York.   We would improve alliances with identified community hospitals, develop collaborative relationships with physicians and physician groups, and heighten a firm public perception that St. Peter’s offers the most qualified and caring cardiovascular professionals using the most current technology for the highest quality of care.

Our first step was to create regional marketing zones, to better assess and manage unique patient needs in specific areas.  A critical component of each zone was the location of community hospitals.  This gave us five identified zones, each served by one or two key community hospitals.

We then conducted a broadly-focused market analysis that captured both the larger picture and the snapshots of each zone.

Our analysis incorporated patient flow patterns, physician groups, demographic and population figures, and referring physician patterns.  We also estimated current and potential volume for each zone, and then rated the opportunities to enhance volume in the zones in terms of the probabilities for success.

To thoroughly understand where we were in the market versus where we needed to be for optimum success, we also performed market research to give us a baseline awareness/preference analysis.  This gave us, too, a benchmark to aid in deriving a sense of our return on investment in the project.

Cementing our position
From these studies, we developed unique planning strategies for each zone, capitalizing on elements that held the most potential to create long-term, synergistic success.  A conscious decision to focus on identifying underserved and at-risk populations determined that education about the five major risk factors (personal history, lifestyle, diet, cholesterol and smoking) would become a primary component of our campaign.

While all the action plans were zone-specific, each drew upon a comprehensive framework that included corporate/community health and early disease identification programs, screenings, educational sponsorships, and advanced communication technology.  We also determined that traditional marketing techniques would continue to play a key role in our plans, and that our communications would be both physician and community-directed.

We began with a very public, interactive demonstration that St. Peter’s is, in fact, the preeminent authority, locally and statewide, in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease.

“Celebration of the Heart” was a single-day public symposium in 2004 featuring internationally-known cardiovascular professionals as well as regional specialists.  More than 2,500 health care professionals and members of the public participated in presentations and discussions, including a question-and-answer panel with physicians from each of our identified zones. Another highlight was a live, televised angioplasty/stent procedures broadcast from St. Peter’s to an audience at Albany’s Palace Theater several miles away.

The symposium generated significant media response, and set the stage for St. Peter’s to take an increasingly active role in leading the region in a campaign to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease and improve outcomes in treating the disease.

Creating collaborative partnerships and alliances
In solidifying alliances with community hospitals, we undertook to assist their efforts to improve community services and education.

We did this by working with them to gain state approvals for diagnostic service improvements, such as heart catheterization laboratories.  This has a dual benefit, in significantly increasing the community’s abilities to identify at-risk patients earlier and more rapidly, and in providing St. Peter’s with the more complex cases and treatments in which we specialize.

We also worked with community hospitals to provide co-branded educational presentations and materials for their communities, and used their hospital’s names and logos consistently with our own.

Our continuing emphasis rests on establishing a process that provides continuity of care for cardiovascular patients.  Collaborative relationships with physicians and physician groups are also central to this effort.  Improved communication through new technology is the key element in providing physicians with a high-tech system that significantly aids them in patient care.

Through this advanced electronic system, local physicians can view, in real or recorded time, any procedures their patients undergo at St. Peter’s.  The electronic link can be accessed from any of the physician’s computers, and can be viewed by the physician or reviewed with the patient.  Instant e-mails throughout procedures augment the video record.

In establishing this type of rapid communication specific to patient care, St. Peter’s has realized not just improved communications, but also increased rapport with community physicians and hospitals.

Corporate and community screenings
Our corporate program identifies people at risk for cardiovascular disease, and provides follow-up assistance to help reduce significant risk factors for employees that are identified.

In this program, employees first complete a health-risk assessment, followed by cholesterol, glucose, blood pressure, body mass index, and lung capacity screenings.  An immediate consultation with a clinician sets next steps, such as dietary changes, weight-loss programs, and smoking cessation efforts.

In cooperation with community hospitals, St. Peter’s also presents more than 100 community events and screenings annually.  These include aneurysm, arterial disease, blood pressure and asthma screenings, and lipid profiles.

That these programs have a distinct impact upon our services is illustrated by the results generated by one atrial fibrillation screening of 200 men and women.  (About 15 percent of all strokes occur within people with atrial fibrillation.)   Sixty-six people from that screening called St. Peter’s, and received treatment, representing $1.3 million in return.

Partnering for education through media
The emphasis on a collaborative approach carried through in our media campaign.  All of our advertising is carefully crafted with the intent to inform and educate.  We actively enlisted our local and regional media in this effort.   Because New York State has such a high incidence of cardiovascular disease, presentation of purposeful information affords our media partners the opportunity to meet their sense of public service.

Television and print advertising presented clear, simple messages, underscored by our theme:  “The more you know about the cause and treatment of heart disease, the better prepared you’ll be to prevent it.”

Another key element of our advertising campaign was the establishment of a toll-free number that can be called to schedule any screening.  1-800-HEART 76 calls are routed through a call center, allowing us to specifically track which programs and advertising generate the most interest and response from our various communities across Northeastern New York.

A look ahead
We believe we see both tangible and intangible returns on our investment in building a broad collaborative coalition publicly committed to reducing the rate of cardiovascular disease in New York State.

Certainly, our increase in the volume of services provided is a very tangible result, and we have seen a positive change in volume overall in cardiovascular services.   We have also measured awareness in each zone, and can track increases of up to more than 40 percent.

By increasing the availability of certain services at the community level (such as catheterization labs), we are better able to focus on those specialty services which allow us to be the regional authority in cardiovascular care.

On the horizon, we will continue to focus on those services, adding subspecialties such as a pulmonary hypertension center, a lead extraction center, and additional electrophysiology services.  We will also continue to acquire leading-edge technology in cardiovascular care.

Our growing reputation and recognition as one of New York’s and, in fact, the nation’s, preeminent cardiovascular centers is an intangible, but discernible, result.

We also believe that as we continue to emphasize collaborative services to provide communities throughout Northeastern New York with a continuity of the highest-quality care and education, we will affect a significant decrease in cardiovascular disease in this region.  That’s our vision, and our mission in this campaign.

By - Elmer Streeter, Director, Corporate Communications, St. Peter’s Health Care Services

Steve Cameron, Director, Cardiac & Vascular Center, St. Peter’s Hospital

Jim Banahan, President, Banahan Communications | Medical Marketing Agency