When the CEO Asks Marketing & Public Relations to Save Lives

About the Topic:

Has your CEO asked you to save lives?  To help change your organization’s culture?  Not just slightly or for a few months, but dramatically and forever?  This session describes the response that Novant Health’s Marketing and Communication staff gave their CEO when he asked them to team with the healthcare system’s clinical experts to reduce unnecessary deaths and other medical complications associated with improper hand hygiene.  On the surface, washing hands seems like an elementary and boring subject for a major initiative and cultural shift; however, improving hand hygiene has become one of this country’s major quality and safety focuses inside hospitals, nursing homes and clinics. 

We will:

1. Explore how marketing and communications can help lead an initiative designed to dramatically change an aspect of culture inside an organization. 

2. Share practical strategies for creating a “buzz” among employees that helps draw attention to an important organizational strategic initiative, and how to maintain momentum behind buzz marketing strategies.

3. Evaluate marketing and communications’ contribution toward a strategic quality improvement initiative and one that involves influencing corporate culture.

About the Speaker:

Jim Tobalski, who recently retired,
served as Senior Vice President of Marketing, Communications and Government Relations for Novant Health and Presbyterian Healthcare.  Novant consists of 13 hospitals, 350 physician clinics and 25,000 employees.  Jim worked 36 years in hospital and healthcare system marketing, public relations and communications.