Case Study: IU Health, Living Our Promise

IU HEALTH:LIVING OUR PROMISE

Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute.

Prepared for National Healthcare Marketing Strategies Summit

The Challenge

Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. 305/02/2023

The Challenge

Following a long series of mergers and acquisitions, Clarian Health had a vision to become the most comprehensive and preferred health care provider in the state of Indiana and the most highly-respected and sought out source for medical expertise on a regional and national level.

The scale of the system was big, to say the least:

143,219 patient admissions

105,929 surgeries

2,244,320 outpatient visits

4,745,000 calls

6,821,732 website visits

30,000 team members


Branding and Naming a Hospital System

Prophet worked extensively with the marketing and executive leadership teams to develop and implement a new, system-wide brand and customer experience strategy to help achieve this vision.

Leveraging extensive qualitative and quantitative research across different stakeholders as the foundation, Prophet developed a comprehensive brand strategy for the health system that involved:

A new positioning which highlighted the breadth and depth of the entire system 1

Changing the name from Clarian to Indiana University Health2

Developing a compelling and consistently deliverable patient experience across the system3

Developing the key elements that would bring the new brand to life and deliver the desired patient experience4

The Problem – Lack of Brand Clarity and the Current Patient Experience


FEAR

LOSS OF CONTROL

OBJECTIFICATION

CONFUSION

Patients consistently speak to four emotions they experience throughout the healthcare journey

ASSURANCE

EMPOWERMENT

EMPATHY

ADVOCACY

EMOTIONS NEEDS


These emotions give rise to a series of higher-order needs that must be addressed

FEAR• Based on results and implications,• High level of anxiety related to the

unknown• Often due to tendency to jump to worst

case scenario• Can be scary to put one’s trust in care

team

LOSS OF CONTROL• Discussed in terms of both the situation

and their bodies- Loss of privacy and control over

health- Limited choice or involvement in

treatment decisions• Feeling completely dependent on the

treatment team is difficult

“What if they can’t diagnose my problem and then fix me? What if something goes wrong?”

“You have to give up your control and that’s difficult, because I hate being dependent on another person.”

OBJECTIFICATION• Interactions with staff or the process of

treatment can cause patients to feel like objects

• Feel that physicians see them as a ‘case’ or as their illness

• Staff focusing on charts instead of talking directly to the patient can prompt this feeling

CONFUSION• Patients’ world as they know it is changing

– they are going from a healthy person to a sick person

• Patients and caregivers explain that they didn’t always know what was going on

• There is often also an oversaturation of information

“I don’t want to be treated like I’m a Ford going into the mechanic for a tune-up. I’m not a car that they just have to ‘fix’.”

“I was completely lost in the conversation – they never asked if I understood what they were talking about.”


These emotions give rise to a series of higher-order needs that must be addressed

ASSURANCE• Patients know they don’t have the

expertiseor knowledge

• Therefore, they look to physicians and staff for assurance that they are receiving the best care

• Trust and confidence are critical elements

EMPOWERMENT• Looking to be involved in the process and

to be empowered even in small ways• The need for being involved in treatment is

particularly evident when talking to caregivers

- Often very knowledgeable about the patient’s situation and want that to be acknowledged

“What if they can’t diagnose my problem and then fix me? What if something goes wrong?”

“You have to give up your control and that’s difficult, because I hate being dependent on another person.”

EMPATHY• Empathy allows patient and family to know:• They are genuinely cared for and they are

a a priority• They are receiving the best possible care• Can be demonstrated in both physical and

verbal form• Currently, most felt from nurses and

extended care team

ADVOCACY• Condition or medication means patients

are often not able to advocate for themselves

• Burden is currently felt by caregiver• They feel need to advocate because no

one else fills this role

“I don’t want to be treated like I’m a Ford going into the mechanic for a tune-up. I’m not a car that they just have to ‘fix’.”

“I was completely lost in the conversation – they never asked if I understood what they were talking about.”

The IU Health Promise

“ Our promise to patients and their families is assurance that they are making the right choice when choice matters most.”


Meaning of Assurance

PATIENTS• The patient can trust the physician and care team• Have confidence in the decision they made and the care

they are receiving

REFERRING PHYSICIANS• Access to the best specialists no matter what the issue• The patient is going to be treated by another physician in the

same way they would treat them• Support and validation in their diagnosis or treatment concerns


Standards of Assurance

QUALITY

We uphold the highest standards of quality care and service.

ENVIRONMENT

We maintain a welcoming environment.

COMMUNICATION

We communicate clearly and with compassion.

ACCESSIBILITY

We make it easy and convenient for our customers to obtain our services.

Defining assurance was critical to success. Often organizations speak with such lofty words, they are apt to be misinterpreted or misunderstood. Here, we took the step of defining our new vocabulary so that each term was understandable and actionable


How to Make Assurance Actionable

Smile and make eye contact.1

Use AIDET consistently. AIDET = Acknowledge the patient, Introduce yourself, tell the Duration of what you’re doing, Explain what you’re doing, Thank them

2

Anticipate needs and welcome questions.3

Reduce hassles.4

Keep it clean and clutter-free.5

Strive to make it right, right away.6

Training and Education - Building the IU Health Culture


Building the IU Health Culture

IU Health needed to break through the clutter of mantras and messages to focus on assurance and related standards across key “touchpoints”:

• Recruitment

• New hire orientation

• Post orientation

• IU Health-wide customer service training

• Internal communications/marketing campaign

• Contribution management

• Reward & recognition

They measure progress, in part, through an internal Brand Equity Audit that ensured employees were understanding and living the brand.


Insider Insights

• In putting into place and building the culture that IU Health wanted, IU Health understood that the employees were key – not only in being able to engage with the brand to deliver it, but also to experience it for themselves.

• To reinforce the importance of the role employees had in the organization, not only were patients polled on IU’s ability to deliver on the brand promise, but so were employees whose family members went to the hospital.

• This became “Insider Insights”, which answered the question: “Given what you know about what patients are SUPPOSED to experience in our system, how did you or your loved one actually experience it?”

• Not only does this emphasize the value of employee feedback, it serves as a tool to reinforce behaviors/standards


IU Health Essentials


Brand Strength Training

Reorient IU Health Team Members

• Reinforce essential IU Health behaviors and beliefs– Standards of Assurance– Assurance in Action

• Reinforce evidence-based-practices and “must-haves” in the context of our promise

• Energize team members around our collective responsibility


Creating an IU Health Look

The unique IU Dress & Decorum Committee was established to propose system policies.

• Ron Stiver, SVP for Engagement & Public Affairs says, “If you are boarding a plane and catch a glimpse of the pilot and see that he is unshaven, poorly, dressed and slouching, wouldn’t you question his ability to fly the plain? In healthcare, we do the same thing. Enforcing uniforms added professionalism to how we were being perceived.”

This was one of the toughest initiatives to implement, but now – it’s a moment of pride.

Team members with patient-facing roles wear uniforms standardized to their relationship to the patient.

Personal appearance policies are reviewed and updated.

Bringing the Brand to Life


Bringing the Brand to LifeNot only did employees receive training, but we also revisited the patient experience to identify areas where IU Health can deliver impact and provide a more consistent brand experience that reinforces “assurance.”

As the system embarks on a new brand launch under a unified name – Indiana University Health – and continues on its Leading to Preeminence journey, efforts are underway to create an enhanced customer experience for patients, families, caregivers, and referring physicians. These strategies are all intertwined and integral to providing our customers with the best possible care.

The Customer Experience Team has proposed enhancements that focus on bringing to life key elements of the brand character and supporting messages, especially focusing on the brand promise of “assurance”. Throughout the enhancements you will see the following elements of assurance demonstrated:

A New Brand. A New Customer Experience.

Empowerment of patients and their families

Better information sharing

Emphasis on the skills of our clinical teams

A tone of assurance in written and verbal communications

A more human and approachable look and feel


Printed Materials

Streamlining key materials into a consistent, cohesive kit:

• Welcome Mailer

• Admissions Packet

• My IU Health Journal

• Guest Guidebook

Conclusion


PROBLEMDifferentiating a healthcare system in a competitive environment with increasing consumer expectations

INSIGHTIndiana University is the largest employer in the state. Most people that go to med school in Indiana, stay and practice in Indiana. Linking the system more explicitly to the University created a competitive advantage and conveyed better care to patients as well as giving them an “academic medical center” association

IDEAS IN ACTIONBased on the new brand strategy Clarian was renamed to IU Health. The name change was supported with an enhanced patient experience across the system

In Conclusion:

Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute.

Interested in learning more? Please contact:

Michael PetromilliAchim WirtzSenior Partner

Partner(312) 878-4927+41 44 218 7819 [email protected]@prophet.com

Jeff GourdjiPaul Schrimpf

Associate PartnerAssociate Partner(312) 878-4929 (312) [email protected]@prophet.com

www.prophet.com/healthcare

Health & Medicine

Case Study: IU Health, Living Our Promise