It's an all too familiar predicament for hospital PR departments - communicating about layoffs while keeping the banner waving for how patient care isn't being affected by the cuts.
Bayfront-St. Anthony's Health Care in St. Petersburg, Fla., became a recent example of how this scenario can lead to negative news headlines about job cuts and compromised patient care.
Last week, ABCNewswire reported the large hospital system was expected to cut 500 positions as a result of steep cuts in Medicare reimbursements and other managed care market conditions. The national report was based on local coverage from the St. Petersburg Times. The number of layoffs the Times reported were inflated, according to Lisa Patterson, Bayfront-St.Anthony's PR manager, who says the hospital only eliminated 200-plus positions in the last year. Other positions were lost through attrition.
Throughout August, the Times ran stories about the hospital's "stealth firing" of hundreds of employees that cast doubt on the hospital's ability to deliver high-quality trauma care. The stories quoted ex-employees who have been affected by the hospital system's recent consolidation.
Kris Hundley, the St. Petersburg Times reporter who has been following Bayfront's reorganization, says that getting accurate figures from the hospital on staff cuts and the departments that have been affected by them has been difficult.
Hundley, who has covered other healthcare corporate downsizing stories in the market, says that healthcare communicators need to do a better job helping reporters understand the specific issues that are driving the cuts, and providing continuous updates on employees who have been laid off.
She also emphasizes the need for PR professionals to provide actual hospital scenarios that communicate how cuts in Medicare reimbursements and a changing managed care environment are affecting patient care instead of simply "whining about them" in general.
(Bayfront-St. Anthony's, Lisa Patterson, 727/893-6814; St. Petersburg Times, Kris Hundley, 727/893-8111)
Just The Facts, Please...
To ensure that news coverage of a corporate downsizing is accurate, healthcare communicators must:
- Distinguish between attrition and actual staff cuts, i.e., the number of vacant positions that won't be filled and the number of people who have been laid off.
- Be clear about market conditions that are driving the reorganization and provide hospital-specific examples.
- Be specific about how staff cuts won't affect patient care. Simply saying your hospital will continue to provide high-quality healthcare won't cut it without examples to back up the claim.