emergencemarketing.com

(cross-posted on the CMO 2.0 Site)

I had a great CMO 2.0 Conversation today with Paul Levy, the President and CEO of the Harvard affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) here in the Boston area.

Just as with his blog Running a Hospital, or his Twitter and Facebook streams, Paul’s no-nonsense attitude and his sharp mind provided for a real fun and insightful discussion.

Paul spoke at length about how transparency was a key factor in changing the culture within BIDMC that allowed it to transform itself from a near failing academic hospital to a viable institution. He also talked about how they reframed themselves with a focus on the science of care delivery instead of cure delivery (it reminded me of the Eli Lilly story where the reframing of their purpose led to a true transformation.)

In the case of BIDMC, success meant a fair amount of behavioral changes for a staff that does not necessarily take top-down advice – something that is really hard to do. In that context Paul described the importance of creating a blame-free zone as well as including the people whose behavior needs to change into the change management training process.

The conversation went into many different and interesting directions – including:

• the role of social media in scaling word of mouth and changing the way people make health care decisions
• the role of social media in transforming marketing, advertising and communications
• the importance of customer satisfaction in the health care space
• the difference between protecting brand reputation vs. earning it
• how far to take openness
• general health policy issues

You can listen to the full interview here. We will soon put edited transcripts on the site as well.

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