I had an interesting conversation with an energy consultant last week at an oil and gas expo. Part of his company’s work involved assessing the social impact of an energy company’s entrance into a particular region before beginning operations there. 
It struck me that health care has an opportunity to take a page from this playbook.
Before entering a region, the energy consultant explained, his clients hire him to make a grassroots assessment of that community. The company’s community relations strategy is then built on that assessment. The social assessment strategy may not sound all that revelatory, especially if you look back five to 10 years at what gas drillers did in our home state of Pennsylvania. They put in place grassroots efforts – town hall meetings and presentations at township supervisors meetings, for example – as they entered new towns to drill for gas.
The big difference I see, though, is going in ahead of the town hall meetings to learn what’s important to the community by first asking its leaders. It’s about first listening before telling. It’s about not assuming what will resonate with a community. By getting informed and gaining understanding of what the changes at hand mean to the community, the “telling” is more meaningful. It, in fact, will resonate and demonstrate true commitment.
So what does this have to do with health care?
I had another interesting conversation last week. This one was with a top state health care official. He confirmed what we already pretty much knew – community hospitals are in trouble, and the likelihood that many, if any, can survive long-term as an independent is low. The likelihood that they will become part of a larger system is high.
So as the big system moves in to take over the smaller community hospital – these conversations are taking place all across the country as you read this – it can begin to have appropriate conversations with key community leaders so that it broadly understands the community and its people. Then, when the time comes to make the announcement that the community hospital, which for so long served as a proud symbol of the hard-working, independent nature of the people it served, is “partnering” with the bigger system, the bigger system is well equipped with a smart public relations strategy to endear, not instill fear and suspicion, in the people it will ultimately serve.
Such a strategy is built on developing relationships and advocates, not on bigfooting. The strategy is executed in much the same way – by continuing to foster relationships with people on their level. It’s about being visible, and not the kind of visibility newspaper and billboard ads bring. It’s about leadership shaking the hands of the community of which it wishes to become a part.
Here’s a timely example. Much of the health care world has watched Pittsburgh as Highmark, the region’s dominant insurer, develops an integrated healthcare delivery system by acquiring the region’s second-largest healthcare provider, West Penn Allegheny Health System. Other than rival University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, there can’t be many in the community opposed to the merger. I support it. However, I said in February that there wasn’t much meaningful communication about this momentous issue coming from the players involved.
Friday’s announcement that Highmark is launching a multimedia advertising campaign “to harness community support” for the insurer’s proposed acquisition of West Penn Allegheny Health System comes as the April 30 deadline looms for state Insurance Department to approve the deal. It does nothing to change my opinion.
Highmark is undoubtedly an integral part of the Western Pennsylvania community and knows it well. But where have top Highmark leaders been to this point in their quest to harness community support for the acquisition of WPAHS? The community is anxious, and I’ve not seen them in the community. An 11th hour ad campaign developed by a political consulting and advertising firm to harness community support isn’t a replacement for the lack of visibility.
As momentous changes take place in communities across the country, whether it is an insurer acquiring a health system or a gas and oil company acquiring property and drilling wells, the keys to endearing a skeptical community are the same: transparency, visibility, collaboration and meaningful dialogue.
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Jason Snyder is a senior vice president for WordWrite Communications.
