SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 22, 2020—Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and technology public relations and marketing agency, announced today that it has been named a finalist in PR News’ 2020 Platinum PR Awards for its strategic integrated PR, social media and digital campaign with Air Methods, a leading national air medical services company. This distinction is one of several awards the agency has earned in recent years for its ability to develop high-value content for healthcare organizations that speaks to market needs.
Amendola focused on establishing Air Methods as a leader in reforming the air medical services industry with its No Membership Required (NMR) program, created to eliminate unnecessary air medical memberships for patients and shift the focus to going in-network with health insurance companies throughout the U.S. The primary goal was to educate the public about Air Methods’ efforts and demonstrate the company’s thought leadership in industry best practices, billing reform and clinical innovation.
“Collaborating with Air Methods on this important NMR campaign is vital to paving the way for necessary changes to eliminate unnecessary memberships for patients/consumers,” said agency CEO Jodi Amendola. “We’re honored that our hard work and impressive outcomes have been recognized by PR News. The results of this campaign really speak for themselves: our aggressive outreach and content development generated 209 organic media placements and our digital campaign earned more than 21 million video plays, 25 million impressions, and more than 21 million post engagements. Most importantly, this campaign and our overall partnership with Air Methods, has led to increased awareness of the company as a visionary leader and industry trendsetter in the air medical services industry.”
With extensive media outreach, the NMR campaign outlined Air Methods’ commitment to continued high-quality air medical services as well as its focus on eliminating potential financial burdens for its patients. Amendola skillfully communicated this message to show what Air Methods has done to revolutionize medical care in the air and serve as patient advocates.
“The Amendola/Air Methods partnership has shown results from the beginning,” said Dallan Huff, Air Methods senior vice president of Marketing and Communications. “As the first air medical company to eliminate air medical memberships, we knew we would be plowing new ground and Amendola was critical in ensuring our success. They were able to help us create a strong narrative on why memberships were the past and how Air Methods was leading the industry into the future.”
In addition to sharing article placements with a wide audience, a nonstop stream of social media posts delivered positive, consistent and constructive messaging that promoted the NMR program itself along with the underlying principles behind it. Amendola curated content from a wide variety of sources, even some that had been critical of prior industry practices, to further the message that Air Methods was at the tip of the spear for reforming the way the business side of emergency air transport is delivered.
PR News’ Platinum PR Awards celebrate the ingenuity and leadership behind the year’s most outstanding communications initiatives. Platinum PR Award winners set industry benchmarks for excellence across all areas of PR.
About Amendola Communications
Amendola is an award-winning, insights-driven public relations and marketing firm that integrates media relations, 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 industry’s best-known brands as well as groundbreaking startups that are disrupting the status quo. Nearly 90% of its client base represents multi-year clients and/or repeat client executives. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros understand the ongoing complexities of the healthcare ecosystem and provide strategic guidance and creative direction to drive positive ROI, boost reputation and increase market share. Making an impact since 2003, Amendola combines traditional and digital media to fuel meaningful and measurable growth. For more information about the industry’s “A-Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Health IT PR award-winning agency and Best in KLAS consulting firm partner to amplify client successes and industry best practices
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct.13, 2020 – Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and technology public relations and marketing firm, announced that Pivot Point Consulting has selected the firm to amplify client successes and industry best practices after a competitive review of agencies.
With 450+ consultants and serving more than 100 provider and payer organizations nationwide, Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco Company based in Brentwood, Tenn. provides Best in KLAS healthcare IT services ranging from advisory, implementation, optimization, managed services and talent solutions.
“Pivot Point Consulting is thrilled to have Amendola in our corner,” said Rachel Marano, Pivot Point Consulting’s Managing Partner and Co-Founder. “Having been recognized as the 2020 Best in KLAS Overall IT Services Firm, as well as a Best Place to Work by Modern Healthcare, we’re excited to join forces to share our story with a broader audience who may not be as familiar with the successful outcomes we’ve accomplished with our clients in mission-critical segments including Managed Services, Revenue Cycle, M&A, Telehealth and Data Analytics.”
“We look forward to the opportunity to broadcast Pivot Point Consulting’s experiences and KLAS-ranked quality in the market,” said agency CEO, Jodi Amendola. “They are a fast-rising powerhouse in the health IT consulting industry — executing innovative strategies for their clients and creating a truly differentiated experience for their consultants.”
Amendola is implementing a comprehensive media and communications plan that will showcasethe success of Pivot Point Consulting’s collaborative work with their clients and bring greater awareness of their breadth of services and innovations as a healthcare IT consulting and advisory leader.
“Our goal is not only to tell our story, but more importantly to share and celebrate the excellent work our clients and consultants are doing,” says Marano. “We are excited to drive the healthcare IT conversation forward at a time when learning and sharing lessons with the community has never been more important.”
About Amendola
Amendola is an award-winning, insights-driven public relations and marketing firm that integrates media relations, 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 industry’s best-known brands as well as groundbreaking startups that are disrupting the status quo. Nearly 90% of its client base represents multi-year clients and/or repeat client executives. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros understand the ongoing complexities of the healthcare ecosystem and provide strategic guidance and creative direction to drive positive ROI, boost reputation and increase market share. Making an impact since 2003, Amendola combines traditional and digital media to fuel meaningful and measurable growth. For more information about the industry’s “A-Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Pivot Point Consulting
Pivot Point Consulting, the 2020 Best in KLAS: Overall IT Services Firm, enables healthcare organizations to realize the most value from their technology and data through their Advisory, Implementation, Optimization, Managed Services and Talent Solutions. Pivot Point Consulting works with provider and payer organizations and has 450+ employees serving over 100 clients nationwide. Pivot Point Consulting has earned many industry and workplace quality awards including: Best in KLAS: Overall IT Services Firm (2020), Top Three Best in KLAS for HIT Implementation and Support (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019), Highest Rated Vendor in KLAS Implementation Services in the Select Category (2017), #1 in KLAS for Epic Consulting in the Select Category (2016), and was named one of Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work (2020). For more information, visit www.pivotpointconsulting.com and follow Pivot Point Consulting on LinkedIn.
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.
Whenever I get award entries (or PR proposals for that matter) to review, I am always struck at how much confusion there is between what constitutes a strategy versus a tactic.
Generally what I will find is that the strategies and tactics are mixed together in some sort of strange PR stew that is like covering seasoned beef with strawberry jam. Both are tasty on their own, but together they just don’t quite work.
This confusion becomes more evident on entry forms that ask for deeper details. If all the competition is asking for is some company details and 300-word description of why whatever you did is award-worthy you don’t have to spend a lot of time separating strategy and tactics.
If, however, the entry form asks for 500 words on strategies around the objectives, then another 500 words on the tactics/execution you used to achieve the objectives, well, you’re going to need to understand the difference. Or find someone who does. Or hope the judges don’t understand it any better than you do.
Basically, the strategy is the overall plan of action – the big picture of what you intend to do. The tactics are the actions you take to get it done.
In baseball, for example, the strategy in a close game might be to advance a runner on first into scoring position (i.e., second or third base for those not familiar with baseball lingo). Doing so will give you a heightened opportunity to add a run to your total (at least in theory; SABRmetrics has shattered a lot of those beliefs in recent years).
HOW you advance that runner is where the tactics come in. You could lay down a sacrifice bunt. You could have the hitter try to bunt for a hit. You could do a hit-and-run, where the runner on first takes off for second and the hitter tries to hit the ball behind him to the right side. You could have the runner on first steal second while the hitter covers him with a swing and miss.
All of those are valid tactics or ways of getting the runner to second. Which you use depends on your personnel and a whole bunch of other factors.
Now let’s talk about PR award entries and why it seems so difficult to tell the two apart. Let’s say one objective of the program is:
“Company A was losing sales to larger competitors, so it needed to create a larger-than-life image to overcome this hurdle.”
How did they plan to do that? The strategy was to use PR to increase its visibility in the marketplace without the huge investment advertising would require. But here’s where it starts to go wrong.
The next sentence in the “strategy” section will talk about how Company A started issuing press releases and thought leadership pieces on a regular basis.
No, those are tactics. They required specific actions from Company A or its agency. The same is true with launching a media relations or analyst relations program. Those, again, are actions the company took.
Again, strategy defines what needs to be done on a broad scale – in other words a business issue. Tactics describe the steps you will take/are taking/have taken to accomplish the strategy.
Here are a few more quick examples that will help stratify the three areas – goals/objectives, strategy and tactics – in your award entries and other materials:
Goals/Objectives
Increase share of voice
Improve company reputation
Establish new market
Attract funding
Position for sale
Strategies
Create a thought leadership program
Engage subject matter experts (SMEs) in developing content
Improve understanding of what media outlets clients/prospects rely on
Gain a better understanding of what product features/benefits are important to customers/prospects
Make messaging more concise/easier to understand
Tactics
Issue X number of press releases for the year
Write byline articles on these specific topics
Develop a media list
Media-train SMEs and other company spokespeople
Apply for awards/speaker opportunities
The beauty of understanding the differences is that award entries then practically write themselves. They tell the story of how you started broadly, then worked your way through the process to achieve the results.
Taking that little bit of extra time to think through what is a strategy versus a tactic isn’t always easy. But it’s worth the effort – especially when you receive that happy notification that you’ve won the award you were targeting.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., June 30, 2020 – Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and health IT public relations and marketing agency, has promoted Philip Anast to the position of General Manager, the agency announced today. Anast is a PR agency veteran with more than two decades of experience in account leadership and executive roles at B2B, healthcare/health IT and technology agencies. In alignment with Amendola’s policy to promote from within, Anast previously served as a Senior Account Director at Amendola, providing strategy and oversight for numerous client accounts over the past three years.
As General Manager, Anast is taking on a number of leadership roles. On a daily basis, he handles employee and client relations, and is managing agency-wide best practices. He also manages major agency projects and evaluates and implements new products and services that expand the agency’s digital marketing, social media and analytics capabilities.
“Philip has built an impressive career at PR agencies of all sizes and is ideally suited for the role of Amendola’s General Manager,” said Jodi Amendola, founder and CEO of Amendola Communications. He is objective, solutions-oriented, and cares about agency employees and clients. Philip is not only an exceptional account director, he also brings to the table strong managerial experience.”
In addition to his General Manager role, Anast serves as strategist for a number of accounts.
Anast has served in senior positions in large and small agencies over the years. Prior to joining Amendola, Anast was Vice President at Chicago-based PR firm Tech Image. During his 15-year tenure there, Anast was instrumental in managing client programs, providing strategic counsel, pitching new business, growing client relationships, teaching best practices and managing finances.
During his prolific career, Anast has provided public relations expertise to clients such as HP, Language Analysis Systems, Motorola, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Kaufman Hall, Vocera (VCRA), Capsule Technologies, Lightbeam Health and others.
“I’m pleased to step into the role of General Manager at Amendola. I see Amendola growing on multiple levels, including our client portfolio, service offerings and account director and support teams,” Anast said. “My chief goal for the new role is to set us up for success as we expand our footprint in public relations, digital and content marketing, and social media.”
About Amendola Communications Amendola is an award-winning, national public relations, marketing communications, social media and content marketing firm. Named one of the best information technology (IT) PR firms in the nation four times by PRSourceCode, Amendola represents some of the best-known established brands and groundbreaking startups in the healthcare and HIT industries. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros delivers strategic guidance and effective solutions to help organizations boost their reputation and drive market share. For more information about the PR industry’s “A-Team”, visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow Amendola on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Media Contact: Marcia G. Rhodes Amendola Communications 480.664.8412 ext. 15 mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com
