We’ve got a few months to go before our board transitions, and our networking committee has already exceeded its goals for number of events and attendance at those events. What’s more, we’ve welcomed several new members to our organization.

In an effort to provide creative opportunities for you to connect with others in our profession, we’ve broadened our circles a bit, and it’s starting to pay off.

• In April, we partnered with the University of Minnesota School of Public Health for its 9th Annual National Public Health Week Film Festival. Attendees got to view “Pink Ribbons, Inc.,” a thought-provoking documentary film that critiqued the commercialization of “pink” campaigns for the fight against breast cancer.
• In June, MHSCN teamed up with IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) Minnesota for our annual happy hour and Twins game, this year held at Gluek’s in downtown Minneapolis.
• And, on August 22, we’re excited about participating in the Twin Cities’ 2013 Alphabet Bash, which brings together our impressive community of marketing, advertising, communications and creative professionals to spend a summer night mingling in the beautiful event space at Aria in downtown Minneapolis. We’re excited to throw our acronym in with other organizations such as MN AMA, MN PRSA, IABC MN, MN MRA, BMA and MWMC, among others!

While our focus may be in the health care arena, we think there’s always something to gain by interacting with others in our industry, regardless of specialty. In all honestly, I’m not sure whether it’s the events we’ve planned for you, or if it’s the Apple TVs that we seem to give away at each event. Whichever the case, I hope you keep coming, meeting new people and making new contacts. And having fun! And, if you win an Apple TV, that’s just a bonus, right?

Hope to see you in August. Stop by the MHSCN table at the Alphabet Bash.

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Here’s what some conference attendees had to say:

Thanks to all those who obviously worked very hard to make this conference successful. It was a day well spent out of the office!

Thanks for a great conference! I love coming to these events as they always have some great take-aways and tools.

A nice mix of topics — something for everyone.

I had a remarkable time — and just minutes ago, signed up to be a member with the MHSCN network.

Thank you for your time to plan, prepare, and execute Inspired Voices: Strategies for the Future.

Topics, speakers and presentations

Design and Innovation: The Human Perspective

View the presentation (password protected).

Ryan Armbruster, vice president of Innovation Competency, United Health Group, was the keynote presenter. He proposes that the healthcare industry needs to think about eliminating inefficiencies to focus on what healthcare is all about – person-to-person touch points and hands-on care. Need-based innovation is where healthcare needs to focus, based on his research and work to deliver value to clients and members of UnitedHealth Group. Armbruster said meaningful innovation can be enabled by a deep understanding of unmet and unarticulated human needs. He shared this checklist of methods to identify unmet needs: Ask, observe, make.

Ryan Armbruster, vice president of innovation competency at UnitedHealth Group, is a passionate advocate for needs-based innovation that employs human-centered design methods. In his role as creator and director of Mayo Clinic’s SPARC Design Lab to his current role at UnitedHealth Group, Ryan is showing that meaningful innovation can be enabled by a deep understanding of unmet and unarticulated human needs.

Ryan speaks at prominent national forums and authors articles. He holds a MHA degree from the University of Minnesota with an emphasis on New Product Design and Business Development. He also teaches graduate and executive courses on innovation at the University of Minnesota.

Marketing To and For Physicians: The Brand Challenge

View the presentation (password protected).

Allison McCarthy, principal of Barlow/McCarthy physician relations; Steven Muellerleile, vice president of business planning and development (Westfields) and vice president of operations, physicians and business development for Hudson Hospital; and Steve Lewandowski, director of outreach operations for HealthPartners and Regions Hospital, shared information about marketing’s role in physician practice development.

• Lewandowski talked about how to get communities to recruit physicians, rather than competing for these important human resources.
• Muellerleile emphasized the importance of administrators working closely with the marketing team on recruitment of new physicians – especially specialty physicians – about strategies and tactics to build their practices.
• McCarthy explained that once the physician recruitment strategy for a community is developed, recruitment messaging must include differentiation, creativity and, above all, credibility.

Muellerleile and McCarthy also shared examples of the effectiveness of using emotion-based advertising messages to gain engagement from all parties in the care relationship when promoting new physicians.

Allison McCarthy, principal, Barlow/McCarthy, has more than 20 years of healthcare management experience with expertise in medical staff development, physician recruitment and relations, tertiary outreach and strategic relationship marketing. Allison is a frequent speaker, presenting at conferences sponsored by several state and regional healthcare strategy associations. She is the author of A Practice Development Primer and Leader’s Guide to Physician Recruitment, in addition to publishing white papers and articles for several healthcare journals, newsletters and other publications.

Steven L. Muellerleile, MS, MBA, vice president of business development, Hudson Hospital & Clinics and Westfields Hospital, founded, built and sold a speech pathology clinic service in Chicago, Illinois. He joined HealthEast in rehabilitation and business development. After 17 years of leading and building an independent primary care clinic from 12 to 27 providers, Steve joined Hudson Hospital as part of the Western Wisconsin growth strategy for HealthPartners.

Steve Lewandowski is director of outreach operations for HealthPartners and Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. In this role he is responsible for recruiting, developing and managing HealthPartners physician practices in 6 community hospital settings in western Wisconsin. During the five years in this role, the practices have grown from 35 to 80 providers who encompass primary care, specialty care, psychiatry, emergency medicine and hospital medicine. Steve previously spent eight years with Deloitte in the healthcare consulting practice and 10 years as director of finance and physician compensation for HealthPartners Medical Group.

From Tracking to Strategy: How to Build Transformational Insights

View the presentation (password protected).

Kate Whittington, partner, Seed Partners, discussed analyzing data to inform strategy and build transformational insights. She started by engaging the audience in talking about how people navigate shopping experiences, and the similarities in how people navigate healthcare experiences. We have choice in both situations, and we as healthcare marketers have an opportunity to become the brand of choice to consumers when they are choosing healthcare. She shared several retail examples of how businesses transform their strategies and tactics to meet the needs of consumers.

Kate Whittington is a partner at Seed Partners, where she consults on consumer strategy. She primarily serves clients in retail, hospitality and consumer goods. Prior to joining Seed, Kate directed Guest Insights at Target Corporation. Her team of 70 was responsible for providing insight and inspiration about Target guests to partners throughout the company, with a focus on Merchandising, Marketing and Stores. Under her leadership, the Guest Insights team grew from 7 to 70, spanning market research, behavioral analytics and marketing strategy.

Reducing Hospital Readmissions in Minnesota: Why It Matters to All in Healthcare

View the presentation (password protected).

The RARE (Reducing Avoidable Readmissions) Campaign is engaging Minnesota hospitals and care providers to prevent avoidable hospital readmissions within 30 days of hospital discharge. A panel discussion about this campaign led by the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI), the Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) and Stratis Health, included Jim Trevis, director of marketing and communications, ICSI; Mark Sonneborn, information services vice president, MHA; Deb McKinley, director of communications, Stratis Health; and Dr. Nancy Flinn, director of outcomes and research, Courage Center. The goal of the RARE campaign has been to accelerate reduction of hospital readmissions best-of-practice across the state. In addition to working with hospitals, engaging community partners and patients and their families has been an important, ongoing learning of the campaign. To date, there have been 4,570 fewer readmissions in Minnesota.

Nancy Flinn, director of outcomes and research for Courage Center, is an occupational therapist, with a PhD from the University of Minnesota in educational psychology. Prior to joining Courage Center, Dr. Flinn worked in adult rehabilitation, and then as an associate professor in the Occupational Therapy Department at the St. Catherine University.

Her studies at Courage Center have focused on long-term consequences of disability and demonstrating the value of a healthcare home for persons with disabilities and complex health conditions, the impact of care coordination health of individuals with disabilities and on the cost of healthcare services.

As director of communications at Stratis Health, Deb McKinley leads communications and marketing for the nonprofit’s work in healthcare quality improvement and patient safety. Her current projects include oversight of Medicare Quality Improvement Organization communications and leading development of the ACT on Alzheimer’s toolkit that fosters community readiness and action to develop dementia capable and friendly communities. Prior to joining Stratis Health, Deb provided communications leadership for environmental health in the School of Public at the University of Minnesota for 13 years. Deb received a Master of Public Health from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Science from The Ohio State University.

Mark Sonneborn, vice president of information services for the Minnesota Hospital Association, manages MHA’s data collection activities. He also is engaged in leading Minnesota hospital industry efforts regarding transparency, administrative simplification and e-health. He is the principal investigator of a 3-year Comparative Effectiveness Research grant from AHRQ that ends this September. Mark is also responsible for providing hospitals with information about Potentially Preventable Readmissions as part of the Reducing Avoidable Readmissions Effectively (RARE) campaign.

Jim Trevis, director of marketing and communications for the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement leads ICSI member communications, media relations, the ICSI website, and marketing of ICSI events and other offerings. Trevis has directed the communications support for such ICSI strategic initiatives as the DIAMOND (Depression Improvement Across Minnesota, Offering a New Direction) program and the high-tech diagnostic imaging decision-support work. He also collaborated with the Minnesota Hospital Association and Stratis Health in launching the statewide RARE (Reducing Avoidable Readmissions Effectively) Campaign.

Rebranding Allina Health: An Exploration of Brand Identity in Healthcare

View the presentation (password protected).

Melissa Berggren, marketing and communications manager, Allina Health, talked about the rebranding of Allina Hospitals & Clinics to Allina Health. She discussed the process of working with internal stakeholders, external audiences and a creative agency to develop and implement the brand identity for the organization.

Melissa Berggren, manager of marketing and communications, led Allina Health in rebranding to a new name and identity. In addition, Melissa is the director of strategic planning for Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul and is a co-founder and director of the Minnesota Blogger Conference. She also serves on the board of directors for the Food Allergy Support Group of Minnesota to support families and raise awareness of life-threatening food allergies.

In the social space, Melissa is known as @MarketingMama on both twitter and her lifestyle blog (marketingmama.com). She also writes on marketing-focused topics at Marketing Insights and Inspirations (melissaberggren.com).

Networking and happy hour

Participants enjoyed networking with each other, as well as conference sponsors and exhibitors: BlueSpire Strategic Marketing, Bolger Vision Beyond Print, Coffey Communications, Interval and The Research Edge.

Following the conference, happy hour fun was had by all.

Location

Earle Brown Heritage Center
6155 Earle Brown Drive
Minneapolis, MN 55430
Maps and directions: earlebrown.com/mapdirections

Conference fees

Early bird rates: March 15 to April 30
$99 for members
$119 for non-members

Regular rates: May 1 to 16
$119 for members
$139 for non-members

Save the date

Please save the date for MHSCN Fall Conference 2013 on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2013.

Article submitted by Colleen Kingsbury, Allina Health senior marketing and communications consultant, and MHSCN Award of Excellence co-chairwoman.

The post Spring Conference 2013 Featured Inspired Voices and Networking appeared first on mhscn.com.

The Minnesota Health Strategy and Communications Network (MHSCN) is teaming up with IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) Minnesota for another can’t-miss event on Wednesday, June 12.

Though the time has passed to sign up for the Twins vs. Phillies game, you can still join MHSCN and IABC for the networking event before the game.

Pre-game networking event

Start the evening at 5 p.m. with pre-game networking at Gluek’s Restaurant & Bar on on 16 North 6th Street in downtown Minneapolis. Gluek’s is conveniently located a few blocks from Target Field. Get directions at glueks.com.

As a member of MHSCN, you’re welcome to join the networking portion (before the 7:10 p.m. Twins game) on its own for our special rate of $15 per ticket. Appetizers and one drink each will be provided at Gluek’s. You can bring a guest for the same rate.

This is expected to be a well-attended event and tickets are limited. Don’t miss this opportunity to mingle with other professionals in a fun and casual environment.

This is a members-only event. Not sure about your membership status? If you can log in, you are a member.

Pay online or by check. Make checks payable to MHSCN, and mail check payment to: MHSCN (Attn: Jenny Sanislo), Minnesota Hospital Association, 2550 University Avenue West, Suite 350-S, St. Paul, MN 55114

Registration closed May 20

MHSCN and IABC Minnesota members had until May 20 to purchase up to two tickets for our home plate view section for the 7:10 p.m. game. The $30 per ticket price included appetizers and one drink during the pre-game networking event.

Tickets will be available for pick-up at the pre-game networking event. Members are responsible for bringing their own ticket(s) for entrance to the game.

Sponsored by

About MHSCN sponsorships

Questions about MHSCN networking?

Contact Diane Rose at dianerose15@comcast.net or Jackie Ritacco at Jackie@thinkinterval.com.

The post Not Too Late to Join MHSCN and IABC for June 12 Networking Event appeared first on mhscn.com.