Who: Hospitals and clinics at the University of California-San Francisco and Stanford University. The new system will be called UCSF-Stanford Health Care.
When: November 1 (effective date)
Total PR/Marketers: 7 to 8 corporate communicators plus a Stanford University news bureau.
Effect on PR/Marketing: When UCSF's and Stanford University's medical centers got approval to merge, the move generated considerable media attention because of the unique public/private partnership involved and the strong message it sent about how academic medicine in Northern California would be delivered. Since UCSF is a public university it bore most of the public scrutiny with numerous public hearings and meetings. The communications challenges addressed at these meetings dealt with crafting legislation that would ensure public accountability for the new enterprise while allowing it to remain a private corporation able to be competitive in the local marketplace.
M&A Campaign: To help communicate the complexities of the merger to employees and senior management at both university medical centers, the board developed a UCSF-Stanford Healthcare transitional team. The team conducted focus groups with senior management and scripted opinion leaders and department heads to talk to their staffs about merger developments. The transitional team developed an electronic newsletter called the "Transition Times" to immediately inform UCSF and Stanford University's medical centers' audiences of about 11,000 employees, physicians and senior managers about merger updates. The newsletter highlighted information on employee benefits and staff agreements.
The merger also received regular coverage through a monthly column by the CEO in USCF's hospital newsletter and regular coverage in the Stanford medical center's newsletter.
M&A Challenges:
- Making sure that the multiple layers of senior management at both university medical centers felt involved in the merger decision-making process.
- Organizing effective communications to numerous audiences: senior management, physicians, employees, etc.
- Making sure the UCSF and Stanford maintained a neutral position on public disclosure, even though both institutions wanted to influence a bill that would allow them to be run as a private corporation.
- Communicating to employees that merger information was limited during tense negotiation periods.