AHA Releases New Ownership Guidelines
In the wake of hundreds of hospital mergers and acquisitions that are taking place at a dizzying speed, the American Hospital Association has just released its "Principles & Guidelines for Changes in Hospital Ownership" that emphasizes key community considerations hospitals and health systems should make when considering new ownership.
Although the guidelines are targeting hospital and health system leaders, they stress being as open as possible in communicating the merger or acquisition to key audiences (medical staff, employees and the community) as soon as possible - initiatives that hospitals marketers and PR pros will be charged with.
"The impetus for our first set of guidelines came from our membership (5,000 hospital members) who wanted to encourage hospital boards to review and talk about all of the issues and concerns involved with the change in ownership before making any final decisions," said Alicia Mitchell, the AHA's assistant director of media relations.
Here, we look at how Lexington Hospital (Kentucky), as the last Humana-owned facility, will handle its future under new ownership with Jewish Hospital Healthcare Services Inc. (JHHS), which owns and manages 36 other hospitals in Southern Indiana and Kentucky.
Keeping Key Players in the Loop
When Humana Inc. announced that it agreed to the terms of the sale of its last hospital facility to Louisville-based JHHS, a letter of intent game plan was already in place, according to Susan McArthur, JHHS' PR director, who says that the AHA guidelines made sense especially for not-for-profits like JHHS. Since the sale of Humana's Lexington Hospital in Kentucky is not final (it's expected to be completed in 30 to 45 days), the board members and key PR players at each of the three institutions agreed to key communications initiatives that would ensure employees and medical staffs were updated on acquisition status before the information became public knowledge.
Although this internal communications strategy was time intensive, requiring numerous meetings with department managers who in turn had to meet with their employees, it is crucial to ensuring the right internal image is conveyed during a time of uncertainty and change. And, since there are 500 Humana hospital workers currently employed at Lexington, staff-sensitive communications are a top priority for JHHS during this transitional phase. The key initiatives of JHHS's communications plan of action includes:
Keeping JHHS's core targets of medical staff, employees and board members abreast of key acquisition developments. But McArthur says that JHHS could only be so open. "There were times when we would have liked to have said more but we didn't want to cause a whole lot of speculation."
When the sale is final, JHHS's external communications campaign will kick into fifth gear with a press conference that will include JHHS and Humana board representatives and announce the facility's name change to Jewish Hospital-Lexington.
JHHS is anticipating a positive community reception to its new ownership primarily because it has managed Lexington's operations since March 1995 and established a strong rapport with not only the community but Lexington's staff and CEO.
Selecting The Right Partner
Six other hospitals and health systems courted Humana, including Columbia/HCA, which purchased Humana's other 70-plus hospitals in 1993 and Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington, Ky., according to Dick Brown, Humana's PR manager. For Humana, the Lexington Hospital sale came on the heels of the healthcare organization's major restructuring strategy to divest of all of its ancillary facilities to focus on its health plan business.
But during the initial decision phase of Lexington's new ownership process, Brown says that Humana was most concerned with finding the right partner that would best accommodate its 65,000 health plan members and Humana staffers at the hospital, a key initiative in the AHA guidelines.
Humana has not proactively communicated to its health plan members pending the final sale of the hospital, but it has armed the Lexington staff with talking points should plan members have questions about their coverage during the acquisition phase. (AHA, 202/638-1100; JHHS, 502/587-4230; Humana, 502/580-2119)