by Jack O'Brien | Dec 22, 2021 | Blog
To be successful in business, you have to come up with a viable idea, develop it, bring it to market, and sell it to customers. That may be an oversimplified version of the formula but the basic principles are there: craft a product or service and then spend most of your time selling it far and wide.
As with so many things in healthcare, this process is more complicated than usual. Caring for patients is always the top priority but then there are also so many different stakeholders and revenue streams that muddle how a company should explore expansion.
Ultimately, healthcare executives are the guiding force that can bring an organization to the next level by embodying the mission statement, promoting value to the market, and winning over skeptics.
But in an era where the playing field is so flat, where new markets emerge only to experience a sudden rush of competitive saturation, companies have to stand out. The most obvious answer to an executive might be to rely on standard business strategies to address these challenges.
However, I would argue that the best way to differentiate yourself as a company and secure necessary industry credibility is to operate above the fray.Optics matter, so leaders must recognize that opportunities to interface with the media and stakeholders as a vendor-neutral voice of reason are an effective, proven way to better serve the business.
Casting yourself as an industry authority or subject matter expert pays dividends down the line because outsiders can look at you and realize you have more to say than simply reciting the same sales pitch over and over.
In the years I spent as a healthcare reporter, some of my most valuable contacts in the industry were accomplished executives that could speak to specific events or general trends in a vendor-neutral way.
Neither me nor my audience needed to know about how their RCM company was the best at streamlining the financial experience for patients or how their virtual care service was going to be the Holy Grail of care access. Quality journalists aren’t there to hand out superlatives or write puff pieces about executives and the companies that they run; rehashing a press release isn’t why reporters do what they do.
However, soliciting the opinions of healthcare’s movers and shakers never goes out of style. For example, if there’s a significant policy announcement affecting payers and I can get an insurance executive on the phone to talk about ramifications without reminding me that they were the first to offer certain benefits to members, then that’s a source I can reliably turn to again down the line.
Subtlety, rather than outright salesmanship, is the best way to position your organization for maximum opportunity.
Getting your name in print, on industry panels, or invited to deliver keynotes should always be the goal because then you build a natural rapport with the audiences you’re most seeking to connect with. Everybody wants what they say to have merit and thought leadership is the ideal exercise to make that happen.
Perhaps most importantly to note, you and your company don’t have to be the star of the story; you just have to be in the story.
Since the initial outbreak of COVID-19, healthcare innovation has enjoyed prime media coverage, the likes of which hadn’t been seen before. Whether it was telehealth, remote patient monitoring, or vaccine research, there were thousands of stories printed about fast-moving developments in an industry that has historically been averse to change.
In each of the stories that ran on television, in print media, or on podcasts, there were ample opportunities for leaders to chime in about the future of healthcare. Many participated, but I implore those who didn’t to reconsider their approach to promoting their brand.
If there’s an outlet or reporter asking to associate your name with a trending story or a noteworthy event, even one that likely will not give you the sole spotlight, you’re better off accepting that invitation because now you’re linked to it.
I know there’s a strong inclination to use any and every media appearance to preach the company’s gospel, but there’s an even stronger value in looking at the world from a 30,000-foot view. If you can step outside yourself and speak to topics that are not simply related to your company’s latest announcement, you will gain invaluable industry credibility and media contacts that will return to you without hesitation.
Thought leadership is not just a pie-in-the-sky buzzword for the most outgoing executives in healthcare, it’s a useful strategy to expand brand awareness that every leader and their communications teams should be pursuing if they haven’t done so already.
by Adam Beeson | Sep 1, 2021 | Blog
Are you talking at your customers, or are you speaking their language and partnering on their mission? This is a question that every marketer, communicator and sales team member should be asking regularly.
We all have some level of brand loyalty in our lives. For me, those brands are Nike, Honda, Jersey Mike’s, Apple, Aurora Health Care and The Wall Street Journal. My allegiance to those brands is based on quality, style, company mission, customer service, product consistency, availability and ethical business practices (there was a time when I liked Volkswagen – they ruined that).
But more importantly, those brands align with what I am striving to accomplish in my life as a father, husband, professional, coach, and member of society.
I’m sure you have a similar list of your own.
The same is true in the B2B space and we frequently see this in the vendor space. A simple example is the technology brands that a company buys for its employees. One business is an Apple buyer, another HP, and yet another swears by Lenovo. And yet computers can largely all run the same software – it’s the set up and components inside the devices that slightly differ. Logically when the devices can all do the same thing, this would seem like an ideal scenario to purchase based on price or recent quality achievements–but the B2B brand loyalty remains.
So how do you establish this level of brand loyalty with B2B customers? How can you be “sticky” when your competition is providing a very similar product?
You need to be more than a vendor. You need to demonstrate that you are an ally on their mission.
Let’s consider a healthcare technology vendor – pick one, there are plenty. They’re solving for the difficult problems in healthcare, like access to mental health services, providing telehealth services, building an improved billing platform, managing opioid prescribing, simplifying decentralized clinical trials….and the list goes on. And this is what their team concentrates on every single day.
But you know what? These solutions are only a small piece of what healthcare providers are concentrating on. The industry has three or four vendor competitors solving for the same problem. And they all tout similar features, such as integrations with big EHR providers like Epic and Cerner. As much as the tech vendor is going to point to a certain feature or new rating, the healthcare provider would rather move on to bigger issues.
And that’s where the opportunity lies: the customer’s bigger mission.
Newsflash – every healthcare provider has a similar objective and a mission statement along the lines of: ‘provide healthcare services that help individuals, families, and communities live longer and healthier lives.’
Now, if you want to be the healthcare provider’s long-term partner or ally, guess what they want you to help them accomplish? Hint: it’s not just integration with an EHR or tracking how many opioids have been prescribed.
If you want to be a provider’s valued partner, you must demonstrate how your solution will help them achieve their mission of saving lives and creating healthier populations.
If your solution is designed to solve for challenges in the mental health space, for example, an everyday vendor will demonstrate how their solution tracks a patient through their care and identifies patients at risk for pharmaceutical addiction.
But a valued partner is going to do those things, plus help track patients as they navigate multiple care providers and the justice system. The valued partner will demonstrate how their solution is improving care adoption for patients battling anxiety and depression. The ultimate outcome of a valued partner’s relationship will focus on improved community care statistics, decreasing arrest rates, and an overall healthier community.
As a health IT vendor seeking to align with a healthcare provider, communicating your story is critical and requires distinguishing yourself and your offering as a partner:
- Create a core narrative that explains how your brand is advancing overall industry mission priorities. Use this content internally and externally to drive your brand message. Refine and update this message on a quarterly basis.
- Leverage your core narrative to create thought leadership content. These new pieces of content can be leveraged in the press, distributed through your marketing nurture campaigns, posted as core blog content, drive your social media efforts, and sales teams can share this content widely with prospects and clients.
- Empower a leader as the owner of your vision for the industry mission. This person, or people, should be named as the author of your content. Further, leverage your PR agency to establish these leaders as a valued interview with industry reporters and then make them easily accessible to the press.
- Engage with your customers and tell their story as examples of how your efforts are advancing industry change and helping to accomplish their missions.
- Survey customers and prospects to better understand their priorities, and where they stand on efforts to move their business mission forward. Share survey data publicly to help the industry define next steps. Leverage this new business intelligence to engage with customers and prospects on how your products can help to achieve their mission.
- During regular meetings, ask clients where they stand on their mission priorities and how your solution can further help with those efforts. Provide insights on additional opportunities from your perspective. And then follow through.
Each of these key steps will redefine your brand and drive brand loyalty from your clients and your prospects. More importantly, this repeated process will allow you to demonstrate your commitment to being the company’s valued partner, time and time again. You will have aligned with their mission, demonstrated the success, and publicly committed to one another’s future success.
by Margaret Kelly | Mar 17, 2021 | Blog
Amendola Communications specializes in healthcare, health IT, and life sciences PR and marketing. A benefit of my employment is that my day is filled with reading interesting innovations.
I research articles for social media, locate editorial calendars from trade publications, and proof press releases before I set them up on the wire. My knowledge in the field has grown substantially over the eight years I’ve been at Amendola Communications.
It’s only in the past two years or so, however, that I’ve been able to experience these healthcare innovations on a personal level. While most of our clients are B2B, meaning businesses selling to other businesses, I’m starting to see several of the products have real meaning in my personal life.
This is a great lesson for marketers. Because the more we can see them from the patient’s side, the better we’ll be able to focus on what’s important to both patients and physicians.
Here are some of the technologies I’m pleased to say are turning out to be everything we’ve said they are.
PMDP – prescription drug monitoring programs: These programs allow my clinicians – either primary care, in the ER or in an urgent care setting – to pull in all current prescriptions from not only the large chain drug store I use, but also a compounding pharmacy for one special prescription. I’m handed a printout of medications pulled from the PMDP and I simply verify.
Electronic prescribing: I can’t remember the last time I had to take a printed prescription to the pharmacy to be filled. Physicians can simply send my prescriptions or refills electronically and I’m sent a text message when they are ready to be picked up.
Mobile health applications: Like so many Americans, I suffer from migraines. My neurologist suggested a mobile app called Migraine Buddy. It allows me to track my migraines, symptoms, medications taken, possible triggers, sleeping patterns, and much more. There are reports that I can pull to give my neurologist necessary information about the number and severity of attacks. There are so many mobile health apps out there; it’s nice when your physician works with you to identify one that not only works for you but works for them as well.
Remote patient monitoring: Not long ago, my father was in the hospital and a cardiologist gave him a heart loop monitor. It is designed to monitor the heart’s function and report it back to the cardiologist via a wi-fi transmitter kept in the bedroom. Each night while my father slept, the day’s cardiac activities were sent to the doctor’s computer. In my father’s case, it was discovered that while he slept, his heart would stop beating several times a minute. He had a pacemaker installed which regulated his heartbeat.
Telemedicine: Especially in 2020, most patients probably got to experience at least one telemedicine visit with a doctor. I used it a few times before COVID-19 as it was convenient and free of charge with my health insurance. But during 2020 and so far into the start of 2021, almost all my care providers are opting for virtual care. Indeed, the industry has seen over 8,000% growth based on insurance claims.
Patient portals: My primary physician’s group, including my neurologist, has a patient portal in which I can request an appointment, send a private message to any member of staff, or save medical documents. For me, it’s an easy way to communicate with my care givers. It’s like a secure email system and I get answers more quickly than playing phone tag.
There are even more innovations that will be coming soon. The Centers for Medical and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued interoperability rules that will make it so hospitals and health systems, through updates from their electronic health records vendors, will allow patients to download their medical records onto their smartphones.
This was supposed to be in effect already, but physicians have enough stress handling the pandemic. So CMS is extending the deadline for the healthcare system to comply.
Reading about our clients’ innovations through bylined articles, press releases and social media is intriguing. However, it’s also exciting to be experiencing these advancements in the real world.
by admin | Sep 24, 2020 | News
Healthcare agency to increase awareness of scalable solutions for streamlined clinical data optimization
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Sept. 24, 2020 – Amendola Communications (Amendola), a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and health IT public relations and marketing firm, announced that Diameter Health has hired the agency to provide strategic PR, social media and content marketing services to drive thought leadership and visibility of its clinical data optimization technology for health plans, state and federal government, health information exchanges and throughout the healthcare ecosystem.
Amendola will promote Farmington, CT-based, Diameter Health through ongoing PR and content development programs, supported by Amendola’s top-tier industry and media relations team. Drawing on Amendola’s deep industry knowledge and diverse media relationships in healthcare, business and consumer media, the comprehensive program will promote the benefits of quality healthcare data that improves patient care, increases revenue, as well as reduces administrative burden.
“I’ve worked with Amendola at two previous companies and Jodi and the A-team deliver top notch results,” says Terry Boch, chief commercial officer at Diameter Health. “In the short time we’ve been working together, the program has already made an impact. Their depth of healthcare knowledge, marketing and public relations expertise and industry connections have been fundamental in communicating our solutions for clinical data optimization to clients and prospects.”
“I am ecstatic to add Diameter Health to our growing family of companies that rely on Amendola to gain ongoing visibility in a dramatically shifting marketplace,” said agency CEO Jodi Amendola. “Diameter Health, which normalizes and enriches clinical data to create real time value, improving both the quantity and quality of data, is leading the way with improved ROI, which is especially important during this economic environment. In addition to delivering industry leading technology to automate data optimization for clients with real successes and outcomes, the company is led by an experienced, proven management team. We look forward to the ongoing partnership and to building momentum to drive strategic growth.”
With automated, proven technology and a five-step data optimization process, Diameter Health improves both the quality and quantity of clinical data available to drive critical business and healthcare processes. Diameter Health provides a longitudinal patient record, packaged and ready for use in HEDIS reporting, risk adjustment, care management, and gaps in care solutions. With a highly scalable platform that aggregates clinical data from disparate systems, Diameter Health’s solutions deliver FHIR-ready standardized, interoperable data that is more accurate and complete.
About Amendola Communications
Amendola is an award-winning, full-service and insights-driven public relations and marketing firm that integrates PR, social media, content and lead gen programs to move healthcare, life sciences/pharma and healthcare IT decision-makers to action. The agency represents some of the best-known brands and groundbreaking startups that are disrupting the status quo. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing veterans understand the complex healthcare environment and provide strategic guidance and creative thinking to deliver proven ROI that boosts reputations and drives market share. Making an impact since 2003, with an unprecedented number of repeat clients, Amendola combines traditional, digital and new media to drive growth. For more information about the industry’s “A-Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Diameter Health
Diameter Health is the standard for clinical data optimization, transforming raw patient information into the highest quantity and quality of interoperable data for healthcare organizations. Powered by automated, scalable, auditable technology and a team of industry experts, Diameter Health delivers actionable and enriched clinical data that enables real-time transactions, improved analytics, reduced cost, and better care outcomes. The Diameter Health platform enables organizations that depend on multi-source clinical data streams, such as health plans, Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), healthcare IT, life insurers, and state and federal governments to realize greater value from their data. For more information, visit www.diameterhealth.com or contact us at info@diameterhealth.com.
Media Contact:
Marcia G. Rhodes, VP, Amendola Communications
mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com
by admin | Sep 11, 2019 | News
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., September 11, 2019 Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and health IT public relations and marketing agency, has promoted Marcia Rhodes to the position of Vice President, the agency announced today. The promotion is the latest in a steady progression of responsibility for Rhodes, who originally joined the agency in 2013 as Regional Managing Director before being promoted to National Managing Director. In each position, Rhodes held many integral roles in client relations, operations and human resources.
As one of only two Vice Presidents in an agency that leans toward a flat hierarchy, Rhodes will continue to lead many of the agency’s client accounts, conduct media training and continue to build out the operational and human resources infrastructure that has made the agency a textbook example of the 21st century workplace flexible, nimble and tech-enabled, with strongly collaborative teams located throughout the country. Rhodes will also spearhead new recruitment programs to support the agency’s rapid expansion into digital marketing, analytics and event management.
“Marcia leads by example in everything she does, whether it’s working tirelessly to amplify our clients’ national and trade media coverage; onboarding new Amendola hires with her typical warmth and thoroughness; or making sure that our remote teams have the most up-to-date tools and processes they need for client success. Additionally, she is a highly respected mentor to numerous Amendola employees,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola.
She added, “Marcia has taken on the well-deserved role of Vice President with her usual commitment to excellence. I can’t overstate how much she has helped to shape Amendola’s ideal culture to become the agency it is today; one that is known for high-performance, harmony and intellectual curiosity.”
Rhodes is a recognized public relations and marketing communications leader who has honed her skills over more than two decades. She has served in PR executive leadership roles in companies that, in addition to six years at Amendola, include WorldatWork, Six Sigma Academy, and Accenture, where she worked for 11 years.
Not only is Rhodes skilled in securing broad media coverage and coveted awards and speaking slots for Amendola clients, her own insights have been featured in publications that include the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Sun-Times, San Jose Mercury News, Columbus Dispatch, The Houston Chronicle, The Arizona Republic, Phoenix Business Journal and several trade publications.
“This is such an exciting time for Amendola; our agency is growing as we continue to add the most innovative companies in healthcare to our client portfolio. It is a joy to recruit the best PR and marketing talent and set them up for success with what I believe is the most flexible, supportive and dynamic agency in the industry,” said Rhodes.
Amendola has a policy of promoting from within whenever possible. To nurture future leaders in the agency, employees are encouraged to regularly learn new skills and take on new responsibilities. Amendola also has a strong culture of mentoring and teamwork that further contributes to professional development. Each employee is assigned a “champion” or mentor, and teamwide collaboration is a feature of every client account.
Rhodes earned a M.A. in International Communications from the University of Washington and a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of the Philippines. She has been honored by the League of American Communications Professionals (for web site development and a client testimonial video) and by the International Association of Business Communicators (for newsletter writing).
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