In the Loop Hospitals Tout the Importance of Internal Publications

No one likes to be left out of the loop, whether in a small company or an organization as large as Cooley Dickinson Hospital.

“We conduct annual employee-satisfaction surveys, and when we talk to our employees each year, they tell us that communication is important to them,” said Christina Trinchero, the hospital’s senior director of Marketing Communications.

And learning how to communicate with employees — and what messages to deliver — is something effective administrators never stop working on, she said.

“It’s always a challenge for organizations, and it’s always evolving,” she told The Healthcare News. “You can’t reach every staff member the same way every time.”

One way that CDH — and other area hospitals — communicate with their large, diverse groups of employees is the use of internal publications. Often, they produce more than one.

Cooley Dickinson publishes STAT — a general-interest hospital newsletter — monthly for all its employees, while a clinical publication, CDHappenings, is published quarterly and targeted to patient care staff. The marketing department also lends editorial assistance to a publication written by and for the hospital’s physician group.

“We want to keep people informed and create awareness of our mission, vision, and values,” Trinchero said, “and employers want their employees to be engaged” — as well as engendering pride in the organization.

“The subtle difference,” she continued, “is that the CDHappenings newsletter may have a little more complicated information in it about certain things, where STAT might include broader pieces.”

Recent articles in the latter have touched on the hospital’s transition to single rooms, the high marks the Cooley Dickinson VNA & Hospice received in a national survey, results from a recent skin-cancer screening clinic, and an innovative, minimally invasive vocal-chord surgery, the first of its kind performed in the region.

Mary Orr, media specialist for the Sisters of Providence Health System, agrees that internal publications are effective means of sharing positive news within an organization — in her case, one that includes Mercy Medical Center and a host of other regional health care facilities.

“I think it keeps them more connected to each other and the work we do,” said Orr, who publishes the SPHS Journal each month.

“The truth is, there’s a lot to be proud of here, and people want to be able to tell their story; this helps them have a better understanding of everything we do.

“One thing we talk about often is the continuity of care we have here as a health system,” she continued, “and this allows everyone to see the things we do — not just at Mercy Medical Center, but in our continuing care network, our home-care providers, our nursing homes, Mercy Hospice.”

A magazine can also be useful in articulating human-resources changes or policy changes, she added. “We’ve found that type of information — dates of open enrollment, for instance — are things that people find very interesting and helpful.”

Other hospitals sing a similar tune, and while the formats and media they use might differ, all the marketing professionals we talked to this month said it’s important for a hospital or health system to determine what works when it comes to getting a message out, and then keep the lines of communication open.

Current Events

In addition to its Pacesetter magazine, which is largely aimed at the public (see story, page 17), Holyoke Medical Center puts out a biweekly employee newsletter called Keeping Pace, which is printed and distributed internally, and also out over the hospital’s intranet.

“The staff was saying, years ago, ‘Pacesetter is great; we read it, but we need something a little more frequent,’ so we decided to do Keeping Pace every other week,” said Kevin O’Hare, the hospital’s public relations director.

“There, we’ll include more things that are specific to employees — employment issues, discounts that might be available to employees, even something on the effects that perfumes and colognes have on patients,” he added. “There’s a classified section with things employees are selling. People have sold houses there, or given away dogs and cats. I got my last two dogs through Keeping Pace.”

The main idea, however, is to get hospital news out more urgently than once every two months or more, O’Hare stressed, adding that he’s also able to distribute news on the hospital’s computerized notice board. “If there’s something happening that we want employees to know about right away, we can have that up in minutes.”

Wing Memorial Hospital distributes a similar newsletter targeted specifically at employees, but does so largely through e-mail, which not only gets hospital news in front of everyone’s eyes, but saves paper in the process. Employees without access to e-mail may have a newsletter printed for them.

“When I first got here, I did a paper version,” said William Russo-Appel, director of marketing and public relations, “but then I seguewayed into an electronic version. It’s more efficient; I don’t have a graphics department, so it’s easier to e-mail it.”

Issues might touch on regulatory affairs, new physicians or other employees coming on board, departments that have received awards, and general plaudits for Wing, he explained.

“I let people know if the hospital is in the process of establishing a new program, or if the hospital has upcoming initiatives,” he said. “For instance, May was stroke- education month, and I devoted an issue at the end of April to activities going on in May regarding stroke education.

“Everyone in health care is extremely busy these days,” Russo-Appel continued. “To aid in communication, we all need to know what’s going on within our hospital, and this is a way to give people knowledge about what’s going on. If we didn’t do it, they might get the information second-hand, or not get it at all, so it’s better to get the message out directly to people.”

In between mailings, Russo-Appel uses the hospital’s electronic network to send press releases and items that can’t wait for the next newsletter, while the institution’s parent, UMass Memorial Health Care, sends employees news updates every day to provide a system-wide perspective.

Computer Age

The inclusion of electronic media gets into the broader topic of how to approach internal communications, and how administrators reach different constituencies in different ways, Trinchero said. “In addition to print, there’s electronic means, intranet posts, face-to-face meetings, just to name a few,” she explained, adding that face-to-face discussions are especially important. “It’s critical to get in front of people and have conversations, have two-way dialogue.”

Social media is a growing force, she added, one that businesses of all kinds must keep an eye on to determine how best to employ it.

Whatever the means, employees just want to know what’s going on.

“We believe that good communication is a part of our transparency with employees,” Orr said. “They’re the best ambassadors of the work we do in terms of achievements, accreditation of programs, grants we may receive for the good works we do, that type of thing” — but to do that, they need to be kept informed.

“The Journal serves two purposes — not only is it an employee newsletter, but we also leave it at various locations throughout Mercy Medical Center and other places for members of the public to pick up and learn about our health system as well.”

The other advantage of having that kind of presence is attracting talent, she added.

“By helping people gain a fuller better understanding of all we do here, we can become an employer of choice,” Orr said. “We’d like to be not only the best place for patients to receive care, but also the best place for professionals to seek employment. And by giving people an understanding of the many accomplishments we have, I think, furthers that goal.”

She cited a story the Journal recently ran about the hospital’s EEG lab receiving accreditation, only the second in the state to do so (the other is in Boston). “The people who work here might not know that unless we told them, and certainly visitors and patients who come in wouldn’t know it either,” she said.

So hospitals keep telling their stories — in print, electronically, and face-to-face — to the people who make them happen.