Strategic Writing Final

Parkview Medical Center

Introduction

Parkview Medical Center has worked hard to make a name for itself in a field with many options.

Parkview’s journey started long before there were specialty hospitals and state of the art medical equipment in 1923. Starting as an eight bed healthcare facility, Parkview exponentially grew throughout the decades and now currently has 350 acute care beds. Each year Parkview listens to the community’s needs and assesses trends to figure out what issues need to be focused on. Parkview takes that information and finds doctors, providers, equipment and caretakers to fulfill their customer’s desires that match the community’s needs as well.

The outstanding service at Parkview makes it a leader in healthcare currently holding 70% of the market share, but one competitive villain standing in the way of Parkview is the leader in all healthcare specialties, Saint Mary Corwin. This hospital specializes in cancer and radiation treatment, which creates a tug of war for both hospitals vying for the attention of the small minority of insured people in Pueblo, Colorado. Pueblo, Colorado has a high poverty and Medicaid/Medicare population.  Uninsured customers are a large concern because of the new looming government healthcare change. Having insured patients helps ensure reimbursement from insurance companies rather than the struggle of government reimbursement.

Reimbursement is an issue, but so is overcoming the stigma the insured population has about both hospitals. They feel Parkview is an indigent hospital and commonly feel they are paying for their insurance on top of medical bills while others aren’t paying. This is the same type of stigma associated with using food stamps or government assistance.  Because of this stigma, insured citizens are heading North to larger hospitals believing they will receive better care. Larger hospitals are more appealing to those with insurance because they feel they have the choice of care and larger cities have more physicians, specialty hospitals and clinics to choose from.

Parkview’s largest challenge to overcome is educating and convincing the Pueblo community and those living in rural Colorado that Parkview can provide them with quality, state of the art and award winning care. The main competition is known for their state of the art cancer treatment center, blocking the stage for Parkview’s award winning services in cardiac, brain, lung and orthopedic care.

The journey of Parkview may become easier if they were able to find an ally in a larger hospital in the city of Denver. This would help give insured populations a sense of security knowing Parkview has resources available to assist in care while staying close to home. This would provide customers the comfort of being at home with a more robust network of healthcare options. 

Story Objective:

Objective: Parkview will increase insured patient referrals from the Pueblo County are by 10 percent for the end of the fiscal year of 2014.

Focused Audience: Employees at large corporations in the Pueblo community who are provided health insurance through their employer

Additional Audiences:

• Large company leaders who are influential in Pueblo County
• Pueblo Community

What do we want them to believe and feel?

• Parkview provides quality and specialized healthcare, close to home
• Patients can trust Parkview to take care of them and their families
• Parkview’s employees, physicians and facility are  caring and compassionate to their healthcare needs
• Parkview is an award winning hospital specializing in; brain, cardiac, lung and orthopedic care

Obstacles:

• Parkview’s main competitor is connected to a larger network of hospitals and is prominent for their Dorcy Cancer Center
• Parkview has a stigma of being an indigent hospital because the majority of the community is on Medicaid/Medicare or indigent care
• Parkview is privately and locally owned without connections to larger, specialized hospitals

Messages/Benefit Statements:

• Parkview is an award winning facility; awarded by US World and News Report with exceptional specialties in brain, lung, cardiac and orthopedic care.
• Parkview provides programs such as, the Mobile Nurses, who go to local businesses to provide quality healthcare screenings to provide employees with detailed numbers to alert them of the possible dangers in their health.
• Parkview Mobile Nurses that determine alarming results, individuals are taken care of immediately and followed throughout their care, and provided with aftercare education and services.
• Parkview helped save a woman’s life using the Mobile Nurses program at a local company by finding out she was currently having a heart attack during their screening process.

Vehicles:

• Parkview will use media channels of the local newspaper and TV.
• Mobile Nurses testimonies
• Pamphlets and take home educational information for community members in other places of business such as mall kiosks, welcome centers, and other various businesses.
• Website
• Social Media

Tactics:

• Using a campaign story of a woman who was identified by the Mobile Nurses during a health fair at her company. Parkview will distribute this through social media, newspaper, TV commercials, pamphlets, educational pieces, and on Parkview’s website.
• Mobile Nurses will approach larger businesses to run health fairs that provide screenings for all employees for a flat rate using the company’s insurance. This ultimately saves the company money, rather than having emergency situation insurance claims.
• Mobile Nurses will provide each person they meet at health fairs educational information on Parkview’s award winning services and what providers are at Parkview that can help with their specific healthcare need.
• Having Parkview leaders connected in local groups and sit on boards across the community to network with influential company owners.

Measurement Approaches:

• Keeping track of each company the Parkview Mobile Nurses provides health screenings at, with information on the type of health insurance they provide will give Parkview an insight to how many patients with the same insurance have used Parkview’s services.
• Intake forms at the time of hospital stay or physicians visit can ask the question “Have you ever taken part in a health fair provided by Parkview”.

Characters:

In this story, the nurses find early detection during a screening at a local company that hired the mobile nurses to provide biometric evaluations.

• Elizabeth: The star and the narrator of the story. She is shy, apprehensive, yet grateful when she tells her story in full detail of how her company hired Parkview Mobile nurses in providing a health fair to employees. She details the events of the day and how she was saved by their thorough screening and caring demeanor with quick reaction. She expresses throughout the story her gratitude towards her employer and Parkview Medical Center.
• Vestas: The company will play a small part that will help intrigue other large companies to provide health screenings at their corporations to help employees.
• Mobile Nurses: Energetic, smiling and empathetic nurses who travel to companies will be portrayed exactly as they are. They play a large, impactful role by providing a health screening at Vestas Company and find early detection of a heart attack in an employee who is quickly sent to Parkview Medical Center to be treated. They’re also representing Parkview Medical Center in the story
• Parkview Medical Center: The hero is depicted in the story with Elizabeth’s gratitude towards all their services. They are represented with their mobile nurses, emergency room, physicians and services provided to Elizabeth throughout her story. This helps the story put focus onto the great services Parkview provides to their customers and the quality care that was given through all angles.
• Dr. MacKerrow: Representing Parkvivew, Dr. MacKerrow will also play part of the hero by helping Elizabeth by rushing her to the Cath Lab to insert a stint that saves her live. While she is narrating the story she mentions Dr. MacKerrow in his kind bedside manner that helps her understand what just happened to her and educating her family. This eases the pain for the family in understanding fully what has happened to their loved one and how to help her avoid this in the future with a healthier lifestyle, education provided by Dr. MacKerrow and Parkview.

Audience: Employees at large corporations in the Pueblo community who are provided health insurance through their employer.

 

Story Plot

Introduction: 

• Elizabeth, an attractive female in her 40s. An employee of Vestas, a large windmill company in rural Pueblo, Colorado introduces herself to the audience.
• She explains how while heading to work she hadn’t felt good that day.
• On that same day, her employer was having a health fair, run by the Parkview Mobile Nurses.
• She is apprehensive because she felt jaded by local hospitals and had never been to Parkview before, but decided to participate in the free event her employer is hosting.
• She starts her checkup.

Rising Action:

• The mobile nurses are introduced and Elizabeth explains how she felt at ease and how welcoming they were.
• Elizabeth explains how she enjoyed the mobile nurses and they explained everything they were going to screen, and were personable.
• Elizabeth explains her symptoms, and is immediately taken to a private screening area.

Climax:

• The mobile nurses start performing vital checks and immediately warn her she is at great risk of having a heart attack.
• The nurses immediately call 911 and explain it’s the best choice for her to save her life at this moment and give her an aspirin immediately.
• Elizabeth explains she argued with the nurses and said she didn’t want to go to a local hospital because she felt she’d receive better care in Denver.
• The mobile nurses quickly explain the exceptional cardiac services Parkview provides and the physicians who specialize in cardiac care that will be there for her waiting when she gets to the hospital.

Falling Action: 

•  She is immediately taken to Parkview’s emergency room and sent to diagnostics.
• Within minutes she is sent to the Cath Lab and met Dr. MacKerrow who specializes in cardiology.
• Elizabeth explains she doesn’t remember much, but waking up to Dr. MacKerrow greeting her and calmly explaining to her and her husband what had happened, and how the Cath Lab was able to save her life by inserting a stent.

Resolution:

• Elizabeth explains how grateful she is to both her employer and Parkview mobile nurses, she knows they helped save her life.
• In explaining how grateful she is, Elizabeth explains how Parkview’s hospital not only gave her quality care, but continued to care for her with education and checkups after she was discharged from the hospital.
• She explains how grateful she is to Parkview and how well she felt cared for. A heartfelt story on how she felt cared for and had advocates pushing for her health.

Angles:

1. Employees at large companies will feel touched by how Elizabeth’s life was saved. They’ll feel compelled to feel connected to Elizabeth’s story, therefore Parkview. It may also make them push their employer to provide a health fair for them to save their own medical costs.  
2. The story resonates with large employers (executives) seeing how employees can be positively affected by having health screenings within their organization. Once executives see the angle of happy, healthy employees they’ll want more information about the Parkview and Mobile Nurses services. Once companies have contact with the mobile nurses the benefits of providing employees with health screenings will be evident.  Companies will be able to see early detection saves money. Healthy employees save money on insurance claims, absenteeism, productivity and save workers compensation claims.  Additional education provided to these employees also gives them the tools to accomplish health goals such as tobacco cessation or weight loss. This angle will be seen from two of the largest audiences needing to be reached, PEDCO and Large companies.
3. Community members will see the advertisements and feel touched by the sensitive and specialized care Elizabeth received and will feel closer to Parkview and their providers. This gives them a sense of closeness to the hospital and they’ll remember the feeling that radiated from Elizabeth when they choose a healthcare provider in cases of emergencies or finding a physician. This goes beyond educating on services, but connecting to the audience by making them feel comfortable and mostly empathetic to Elizabeth’s situation and how well she was cared for.
4. It will also provide an angle that proves Parkview provides award winning, quality healthcare right here in the comfort of patient’s home town rather than driving farther for the same healthcare. This angle helps plug Parkview’s many awards for exceptional healthcare in specialty areas while connecting to the audience.

 

Where story will be told:

·         Commercials: The commercials can be broken up, if needed, they will provide a vehicle for Elizabeth’s story to be shared.

·         Newspaper: The ads will have Elizabeth’s face and a quote from her full story that can be found on Youtube, Facebook, and Parkview’s website. The quotes used will be intriguing, heartfelt, and emotional to pull at the heart strings of readers. Quotes that reflect this woman and/or her situation could be a wife, mother, sister, daughter, or loved one.

·         Youtube: Videos on Youtube can be made longer than the average commercial, but it will give Elizabeth’s story enough time to explain the whole process of the health fair and her rushed visit to Parkview’s Cath Lab.

·         Social Media: Quotes that are meaningful and heartfelt will be used from Elizabeth’s story to reach audiences because they’ll be short and concise. This will leave audiences wondering more and it will link back to the YouTube videos.

·         Featured Story: Elizabeth will be used as a Featured Story in the local newspaper written in a style that is both her words and interview style. This will give the story a new dynamic, to portray a positive story to skeptics, and a chance for an interview to deepen the conversation of her great experience.

·         Pamphlets: These will be used during health fairs and placed in areas around the Pueblo community, including larger companies. They will offer interesting details about Parkview’s awards and services, preventative health education, and include Elizabeth’s story.

·         Mobile Nurses: During health fairs, mobile nurses will use Elizabeth’s story to help others feel more comfortable with the service.  Elizabeth will attend some of the health fairs at other local companies.

Selling the story:

·         Newspaper: To secure the newspapers for feature stories, this topic uses the health concerns of many young women and uncertainties of heart attacks. This is a  nationwide health concern and many women are unaware of the risks. Finding the perfect time to sell this story is vital so it is relevant, such as cardiac awareness week or heart health month. The more relevant the topic is to those reading the paper and what is happening nationally, the more likely it’ll be sold quickly to the newspaper.

·         Social Media: Elizabeth’s story can’t be told in the small space social media allows, but using meaningful quotes with links to the YouTube videos will allow for social media followers to feel intrigued. Using interesting, relevant and fun social media clips will help generate YouTube views.

·         Pamphlets: Mobile Nurses will visit local companies and explain how using health fairs can save the company money in preventative care and screenings. Using these screenings help aide in early detection. Healthier employees cost companies less. Companies will likely agree to use the educational information in their facilities because it will prove to be beneficial in cost savings.