It’s no secret how far health care has to go when it comes to transparency and providing meaningful information to patients. I read two recent news stories that underscore that fact.
Ben Fischer at the Washington Business Journal last week wrote about the Leapfrog Group’s “Hospital Website Transparency Awards” program. In partnership with an accreditation group called URAC, Leapfrog is taking nominations for hospital websites that: 
- promote transparency of quality measures in a manner that is useful and user-friendly for consumers; and
- provide useful and timely content for patients, payers, and the general public.
In 2012, seven hospitals received the 2012 Acknowledgement of Excellence in Hospital Website Transparency, with two of those hospitals also receiving a Distinction with Honors for their outstanding work in hospital website transparency.
Seven.
I don’t know how many entered, but seven winners? What does that say about hospital web sites? Well, according to Fischer, hospital web sites are “a medium notorious for meaningless marketing bromides and vague promises of ‘cutting edge’ health care with little actionable information.”
Thank you, Ben. That’s exactly what we’ve been saying, and not just about hospital web sites, either. Health care marketing in general is ineffective.
Tired logos, taglines and jingles permeate brochures, billboards, websites and television spots. Unfortunately, none of these worn tactics tell a cohesive story or demonstrate how a specific community benefits from its hospital’s services, and none of them carry much, if any, credibility. Unlike a brand, a healthcare system’s story — complete with a beginning, middle and end — can provide a more robust, contextual, authentic framework in which to engage stakeholders, from patients to the IRS.
The institution’s story enables its leaders to showcase the true value of what they do in ways that do not have to be shoehorned into oversimplified brand “hooks,” tag lines or other premises.
In the 21st century digital age of transparency, patients are asking why they should get their care there, beyond the standard marketing claims about the region’s greatest heart care or orthopedics team, or the most advanced women’s health center, or the speediest emergency room. They go online to rate doctors, nurses and hospital systems. Their deep conversations about the value of a health care institution have nothing to do with the tagline or traditional branding tactics such as logos and colors.
The seven winners of last year’s transparency awards deserve congratulations, because they are trailblazers. Even so, there’s a long way to go. The quality data, while a step in the right direction, isn’t that easy to follow, and I’m not sure how helpful it is, though if you were considering one of these facilities and were willing to do the legwork, you’re going to have a much better, evidence-based idea of how they will perform than what a warm jingle promising compassionate care tells you.
The Tar Heel state, it seems, has grown impatient waiting for its hospitals to blaze a transparent trail into the dark forest of cost. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed legislation in late August that will require hospitals to publish the prices that they negotiate with insurers, as reported by Sarah Kliff in the Washington Post.
Someone undergoing surgery in North Carolina conceivably will be able to comparison shop on price.
Now, if the Leapfrog Group’s drive for hospitals to publish quality data could be married with Gov. McCrory’s pricing transparency push, we’d really be making strides.
Indeed, there is much work to be done. Yet hospitals don’t have to wait to be forced into transparency through legislation. Download our thoughts on how they can tell a meaningful story today that foregoes the traditional tactics that say little.
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Jason Snyder is a senior vice president for WordWrite Communications.
