COMPANY: Hospice of Northwest Ohio
AGENCY: R/P Marketing Public Relations
TIMEFRAME: 2001 - ongoing
What's the toughest thing you ever tried to pitch? Here's a tough one: Dying.
For the past several years, Hospice of Northwest Ohio (HNO) in Perrysburg and Toledo-based R/P Marketing Public Relations have been working to change the way
doctors and consumers view end-of-life care. It's no small task. "Our society does not want to deal directly with death. It's difficult to get people to not turn away from
messages about end-of-life," says R/P partner Stan Massey. HNO wants more people to choose hospice, and it wants them to come in sooner than later -- months before dying instead
of weeks.
Together, the hospice and the agency have brought to bear a range of tools to make this happen. Focus groups showed baby boomers had a bad feeling about hospice care: It seemed
to them to be a kind of "giving up." Surprisingly, doctors surveyed said much the same thing. "Doctors are trained to save lives," Massey says. "A lot of them feel that by
acknowledging that it is time to talk to a hospice, it is in some way admitting defeat."
With these findings in mind, the PR team conducted a telephone survey of some 300 subjects to help hone the hospice's messaging. For physicians, the campaign theme that evolved
attempted to sidestep the issue of cure versus end-of-life. Instead of talking about dying, the survey's language centered on quality of life.
"A lot of hospice is about pain and symptom management, so a lot of the messaging to the doctors was 'Let us be your partners in managing the pain and symptoms while your
patient is going through this process,'" Massey says. The campaign reached out to physicians through discussion sessions in physicians' offices along with Q&A talking points
intended to address doctors' concerns.
On the consumer side, the campaign went for a personal approach, with TV spots, Web-site content and pamphlets...all highlighting stories of individuals whose families had
experienced hospice.
"We simply interviewed people who had loved ones go through the hospice experience, and people related to them so well [in the TV spots], they actually became known in the
community. People would stop them in the grocery store," Massey says. To keep those spots authentic, a PR professional would interview the subjects in advance in order to
understand their stories, but there would be no canned answers. Rather, a PR pro would talk with the subject on camera, letting answers flow naturally. It took between 20 minutes
and 30 minutes of filming to capture each 30-second spot.
The TV spots were paid advertising, of course, but Massey sees them more as a part of the pure PR effort. The spots were not about "selling," after all. "We really were trying
to answer people's questions, whether they were going to act on it now or not," he says. "We were promoting the answers, and the television ads were just real-life examples
of what we were talking about everywhere else."
A lot of that talking got done on the HNO Web site (http://www.hospicenwo.org), where a redesign focused not just on user accessibility and on presenting an upbeat tone, but also on the
need for answers as a primary function of the site. In fact, one word - "Answers" - is emblazoned across HNO's home page.
A series of pamphlets mirrored that look and feel, each addressing a different aspect of hospice care. "It is a very complex topic, and this was really a way to break down the
information into more bite-sized chunks," Massey explains.
Together, these measures succeeded in delivering a tangible end result. Specifically, people have started checking in earlier.
"There is a common fallacy that hospice is only for people who are on their very, very last leg when, in fact, you can be in hospice care when you have six months to live,"
explains Judy Lang, communications director at HNO. "So our primary goal was to increase the length of time that patients spend in our program."
With a higher profile for the program and better relations with physicians, the campaign has driven the desired result. "We went from an average length-of-stay of 34 days and
increased it to 44 days, which in the hospice industry is a huge accomplishment," Lang says.
Overall, patient days have gone from more than 55,000 to 2001 to more than 101,000 in 2004.
What made it work? Why were they able to break through the stony wall of silence that surrounds end-of-life care in this country?
Massey says the personal stories were the key component. "It was the human element of the stories and the people we featured," he says. "People really related to them. They got
a real understanding of how these people had been helped."
Contacts: Judy Lang, 419.666.4001, [email protected]; Stan Massey, 419.241.2221, smasset@r-
p.com
Myths & Facts About Hospice
Myth: Hospice is where you go when there is "nothing else to be done."
Fact: Hospice is the "something more" that can be done for the patient and the family when the illness cannot be cured. It is a concept based on comfort-oriented care.
Referral into hospice is a movement into another mode of therapy, which may be more appropriate for terminal care.
Myth: Families should be isolated from a dying patient.
Fact: Hospice staff believe that when family members (including children) experience the dying process in a caring environment, it helps counteract the fear of their own
mortality and the mortality of their loved one.
Myth: Hospice care is more expensive.
Fact: Studies have shown hospice care to be no more costly. Frequently, it is less expensive than conventional care during the last six months of life. Less high-cost
technology is used, and family, friends and volunteers provide 90% of the day-to-day patient care at home.
Myth: You can't keep you own doctor if you enter hospice.
Fact: Hospice physicians work closely with your doctor of choice to determine a plan of care.
Source: Hospice Foundation of America
Pitching Passing On
To help people understand how hospice can ease the passing on of a loved one, Hospice of Northwest Ohio adopted a number of PR tactics:
- Pitching feel-good features stories, like a piece about resident therapy dogs and another about a charity motorcycle rally.
- A physician-relations program delivering essential information to those who might refer patients to hospice.
- A Web-site overhaul to give a brighter, more cheerful look to the site, with an emphasis on fundamental hospice information.
- Q&A coaching for hospice staff and volunteers to prepare them to respond to any requests for information they may encounter.