Grindstaff ENT 645 July 2015
Subject Matter Expert Interview
Jerri Jameson
06 July 2015
Jerri Jameson is currently the Director for Marketing and Communications at Mission Health. In this role her duties include developing and framing all communications messages to the external world regarding anything related to Mission Health. Her background includes print and broadcast media most recently she was the news director for a cluster of radio stations in the greater Asheville area; prior to that she held the positon of Vice President of Marketing for a major, international manufacturing company. Her education includes degrees in both business administration and broadcasting making her choice to be a subject matter expert an obvious one to me in the fact that she handles the daily messages for the entire health system’s brand and public relations promotions.
Fortunately I knew Ms. Jameson from our work together at Mission Health over the past five to six years so there wasn’t much need to break the ice but rather I just outlined the purpose of the ENT assignment and thus the subject matter expert interview. She was very excited to hear about and wanted to learn more about the Entrepreneur program so I gave her a brief overview of it and how I was using each of the classes related to my position with Air Medical. We discussed how this particular class, ENT645, was proving to be extremely valuable for the Air Medical program’s marketing plan.
What do you see as current the challenges to marketing health care overall?
“The up and coming challenge in health care first and foremost is to educate the consumer. And by customer I mean the patient and family that the role of health care is changing to one of helping to keep them well rather than treating them after they’re sick. We need to get them into a primary care practice for ongoing maintenance care. The goal is to get their blood pressure down, get their asthma under control, get their congestive heart failure or diabetes issues addressed rather than having a huge emergency room full of very very sick patients with problems that for the most part could have been prevented. Well care rather than repair care. This is the direction that marketing can influence health care. Teaching, providing resources or information to direct people to preventative care rather than restorative care will fall onto the Marketing and Communications Department to develop and lead. Don’t get me wrong, we will always have the need to provide restorative care for those issues that require it but there are some diseases processes that should seldom, if ever, see the emergency room.”
What about marketing for an air medical program such as MAMA?
“With the changes in health care reimbursement and current landscape it is becoming harder and harder to justify spending money to market any portion of a health care industry that isn’t making money for the whole. Air Medical being one of those sectors that is break even at best so time and resources are at a premium when it comes to marketing for an air medical program such as MAMA. Our challenge is to make the most of opportunities that don’t require a lot of capitol or monetary investment and leverage those to the best of our ability.
We discussed the ideal client vs the customer and I asked Ms. Jameson what she thought when it comes to differentiating one air medical program from another.
“In this type of emergency situation where air medical services are required, the patient isn’t the one requesting the service; it’s someone on their behalf or acting in their best interest. That person, agency or entity should be the focus of outreach and the driving factors when developing any marketing strategy”.
“We have to set our program apart, differentiate how we’re better than the others and why we should be called instead of the competition”.
What do you see as the best means to market a program such as air medical?
“Relationships, plain and simple. I believe that building relationships among those that will use your service is the foundation of any marketing strategy. Face to face or phone communications. Do what you say you will do, prove you do what you say with metrics or performance aside from assuring the customer’s satisfaction with the experience. Having facts and data to support that you’re meeting their goals then go above and beyond of their expectations and exceed their needs.”
“Social media is just one of the tools that can be used for marketing a program like MAMA but being out in the area you service with the people that use your service is more valuable than 1000 page likes. Go to where your customers are, where they work talk to them there, meet them on their turf”.
“If we can get the customer, or patient for that matter, to provide a good referral, that’s good as gold. Then it’s our job to make the most out of that referral. That’s where the social media, among other avenues, comes into play. Share the customer’s comments, get them on a short video clip telling their story, put it in print as a thank you article in the newspaper anything along this line is virtually free to develop but the return could be priceless. Whatever the tool, spread the word that someone you provided service to was happy with what you did. Let them tell your story, sing your praises and you won’t have to. This type of message is more authentic, carries more weight with others that might use the service and is more respected than you saying you do a good job.”
In your experience what are other things that can be done to market besides sending out direct mail or a social media post?
“Be involved in the community you live in and industry you work in. This is soft marketing not a 5×7 glossy postcard that comes in the mail or a cold call visit to their office. If they see that someone from your business is involved in the industry or community, they’ll remember that. You don’t have to show off or tell them that you’re from MAMA, just be present, a lot. This also goes back to networking and relationships. If they see that MAMA is part of their group, then MAMA will be familiar when it’s time to request a helicopter service. MAMA has a great opportunity to provide this by education. Having staff members teach classes or provide training is a win/win. The receiving agency or group gets knowledge from the experts in transport medicine while the MAMA program gets their brand/logo in front of a classroom full of customers, win/win”. I think MAMA does this well but there are always opportunities.”
How do you select people to join the Marketing and Communications department at Mission?
“We look for highly motivated, self-starters that have people skills. Education and experience is widely variable among the current staff. We have some folks with a high school diploma and we have some masters prepared staff. Some have worked in health care before coming to us and some were in completely different industries. People skills are the common denominator you have to know how to relate to others and get your message across in more than one way.”
Could you describe a typical day?
“There is no typical day for a Director of Marketing. But, it’s not unusual to start off by checking email and the news feeds for anything related to the health system. We look for things that would have an impact on the image of Mission or things that have happened to other health care agencies that local media might come to us to see how we are handling or how we are prepared to handle a similar situation if it presented to Mission. Any high profile patients that will have a media interest, we want to be ahead of. Any events in the community that might have patients coming to Mission for care we want to be ready for questions from the press. The latter is a challenge since Mission is the medical center for the entire region; we get patients from all over so we have to look for stories well outside of the greater Asheville/Buncombe area that might have sent a patient to the trauma center etc. Any recent inspection or governmental reviews that might make media, we need to have information when the phone rings. The Joint Commission was just here conducting a triannual survey and will be back soon for follow up. Most people don’t have any idea what the means but some certainly do, we need to be prepared to answer questions related to their visit should they arise; all this projects for marketing and outreach and fielding calls from media. A portion of the day’s work is to help develop the ‘response’ or ‘company line’ when it comes to one of the events I mentioned. We help develop the talking points for the executive leadership team to use in any of their presentations or materials. Media packages for a new building grand opening or new doctor/service at Mission. Basically anything that is said about Mission Health, we’re the script writers behind the speaker”.
What advice would you give to someone who was considering a career in health care marketing?
“You’ve got to be a people person. It’s imperative that you have the ability to relate to people and develop a relationship of understanding and trust so they will feel comfortable with you and hear your message.”
Ms. Jameson and I chatted for a while longer but this is the jest of our conversation related to being a subject matter expert for health care marketing. I expressed my sincere gratitude for her time and willingness to share her knowledge and expertise with me both personally as it related to the ENT assignment and professionally as the expert in marketing the air medical service at Mission which I have a vested interest in.
I followed up with a thank you phone call a few days later to Ms. Jameson again thanking her for her time and willingness to participate in the interview.
