With the success of "reality TV" shows that are dominating the networks it was only a matter of time before one of them would exploit this formula to capture the high drama of
modern medicine at hospitals. ABC seized this moment last month with "Hopkins 24/7," a six-part documentary series that gives an in-the-trenches look at how Johns Hopkins Hospital
in Baltimore delivers its wide spectrum of care, from a risky pediatric brain surgery procedure to a life-saving organ transplant.
Reaching millions of people in a primetime spot for a month gave Johns Hopkins enviable national exposure, but it came at a cost many hospitals would have shied away from. ABC
gained access to a side of hospital life most patients are unaware of. Its cameras rolled during a "Morbidity and Mortality" meeting where doctors scrutinized their medical
decisions to learn if fatal mistakes were made.
The meeting showed the intense decisions involved with medicine, the vulnerabilities of doctors and ultimately how a hospital learns from its medical mistakes. While this was
brave to do for community education, how smart was it from a PR perspective? PR had to become a fly on the wall while TV crews filmed for three months around the clock. There was
no way that PR staffers could accompany the cameramen the whole time. And the hospital had no editorial input on the footage ABC selected.
But it was worth the risks. "We felt we had nothing to hide and wanted people to understand what goes into academic medicine," says Elaine Freeman, Hopkins' executive director
of communications and public affairs. This level of candor also allows Hopkins to engage the public on larger healthcare issues that affect healthcare delivery, like the managed
care barriers for academic providers and the magnitude of ER services that stretch the resources of large urban hospitals.
It remains to be seen whether other hospitals will open their doors as wide as Hopkins did to the media. But if "Hopkins 24/7" mirrors the success of shows like CBS's
"Survivor" and MTV's "The Real World," more and more hospital PR teams will be asked to consider it. And the networks may want to push the envelope more than their cable
counterparts, showing more of the controversial aspects of how healthcare is delivered at hospitals. Which means that, increasingly, hospitals will have to make tough calls on
whether they should expose their vulnerabilities to the camera.
Establishing Trust
Although medical documentaries have been programming mainstays on cable channels like The Learning Channel, PBS and The Discovery Channel, the networks tended to rely on actors
and actresses to dramatize the gripping life-and-death events that regularly take place in hospitals.
Think "ER," "Chicago Hope" and the upcoming "Gideon's Crossing." But there's an insatiable appetite for the real thing, which is one of the key reasons ABC approached Hopkins.
Even on the cable front, stations like Discovery Health and PBS are increasing their programming lineups to include more medical documentaries because they tend to be the highest
rated shows.
While this escalating interest in medical documentaries holds exciting PR potential for enhancing hospital reputations, it also means more time and energy will have to be spent
establishing mutual trust, with patient privacy being the top priority. Hopkins and ABC were in negotiations for more than a year before camera crews were allowed into the
hospital, says Freeman. Top-level lawyers, administrators and department heads from both organizations hashed out patient privacy safeguards, security issues and other logistics.
As hospital PR practitioners it's also important to establish confidence in your department's judgment and ability to control patient and staff issues during filming, says Lynn
Hopkins Cantwell, director of PR and marketing for Children's National Medical Center.
She spoke on this topic at the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development conference in Orlando last week. Last summer, a TV crew from NYT Television went to
Children's to shoot footage for Discovery Health's new "Lifeline" program, which will air this fall and focuses on how doctors interact with patients.
While doing all that you can to anticipate, plan and communicate about your hospital's participation in a documentary is what most prevents documentary disasters, there's no
way to completely safeguard against image problems that may arise. In spite of these risks, however, the opportunity to reach millions of television viewers can't be missed as
long as patient privacy boundaries are set and relentlessly protected.
(Johns Hopkins Hospital, Elaine Freeman, 410/955-3194; Children's National Medical Center, 202/884-4500; MetroHealth System, James Gosky, 216/778-5798)