If your healthcare organization wants to boost its image, informational partnerships with non-healthcare companies offer virtually unlimited opportunity.
Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital in Salinas, Calif., for example, reaped global benefits "Partners in Health Technology," a collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center. This first-of-its-kind, exhibit-driven campaign offered the community lessons about several medical aerospace spin-off technologies, while drawing attention to SVMH's Regional Heart Center expansion. The Partners program also serves as a model of "outside the box thinking." Good reasons for winning HPRMN's "Best PR" campaign.
The notion of partnering with NASA was the brainchild of Susan Hanks-Marscellas, SVMH's director of media and PR, who had a hunch that medicine is a top beneficiary of NASA research.
After investigating the numerous similarities between NASA research and medical technology, CEO Sam W. Downing was sold. The idea also caught on with several departments that provided input on the campaign's execution, including health promotion, the heart center, security, engineering and the hospital's foundation.
The initial idea, designating SVMH a "NASA Virtual Hospital," evolved into a full informational collaboration, culminating in a 16-day exhibit event to announce both the partnership and heart center expansion. The campaign's exhibits captured the interest of several facets of the local community, including the educational, agriculture, medical and business sectors. The program also intrigued Key patient groups, including heart surgery, cancer and diabetic patients.
The collaboration was ideal because it had clear benefits for both the hospital and NASA. "Because of heavy government cuts, NASA doesn't really have the [PR] manpower to promote its exciting medical research in laymen's terms to the community," says Marscellas. "They became very supportive of our educational initiatives that reached the schools and other aspects of the community."
The campaign reached more than 100,000 people over the two-week-plus period and raised more than $160,000 for the heart center at a marketing budget of $100,000. To keep the costs of the exhibits down, hospital vendors that wanted to be associated with this high-profile educational effort underwrote many of them. In addition, NASA partners, including AMES Research Center, the Johnson Space Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, did not charge for their participation in public events.
The partnership continues to generate speaking opportunities among the business and educational communities.
To strike a partnership of this magnitude, Marscellas offers this advice:
- Develop upscale educational initiatives that NASA would be eager to be associated;
- Explore ways to communicate the technology in imaginative "laymen's" terms; and
- Leave your organization's ego behind.
The NASA/SVMH Team
Sam Downing, CEO; Susan Hanks-Marscellas, director of media and PR; Steve Dooson, network manager; Tom Duncan, IT director; Steve Fruit, director of diagnostic imaging; Lawrence Klainer, M.D., asst. administrator of special projects; Ralph Keill, M.D., medical director, asst. administrator; Irene Neumeister, R.N., asst. administrator heart center; David Rice, supervisor of nuclear medicine; Lesley Tarpin, cardiology manager, Robert Smith, NASA liaison; Dr. Muriel Ross, director of bicomputation center, NASA Ames Research Center, Larry Chao, NASA