HealthSouth Corp., the nation's largest chain of rehabilitation
hospitals, has been on the front pages practically every day lately
because of a growing accounting scandal. When the scandal broke,
HealthSouth hired global health consultancy Euro RSCG to handle the
front-end of the crisis. (The agency steered communications for the
first two weeks of the crisis). Susan Noonan, president of Euro
RSCG, talked with PR NEWS about the challenges the agency has faced
in counseling HealthSouth.
Q. Your company provided round-the-clock counsel to HealthSouth.
What were the kinds of tools you offered to help the company deal
with the scandal?
A. We put together a communications team and had a senior person
in charge of each of the key audiences: employees, media,
investors, providers and patients. We needed to make sure there was
a constant flow of communication, such as were employees getting
their pay checks and were the physicians able to care for their
patients. The media wants constant information so we had to be on
our toes in making sure which direction we wanted to go.
Q. How do you get the media to focus on the recovery and the
positive aspects of HealthSouth's responsiveness to the
scandal?
A. We put out a series of press releases talking about the
interim team and the step that were being taken for the company to
get its arms around the crisis. We adopted a governance plan in
terms of negotiating with the banks; the treatment of patients and
also put together an effort to find who was involved [in the
scandal] and what happened. It was also doing symbolic things, like
taking the name of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy from the
company's buildings.
Q. How is HealthSouth's internal communications team working
with Euro RSCG to address HealthSouth's problems?
A. We had three meetings a day and had access to acting chairman
Bob May. We had to make sure we were consistent with the messages,
and it was important to have the organization in place so we didn't
have to run around for something to be approved because we were the
ones being quoted and putting out the information.
Contact: Susan Noonan, [email protected],
212.845.4252.