A Large Healthcare System Increases its Reputation Score by Nearly 50%

• A not-for-profit, integrated healthcare system
• More than 60 specialty clinic offices across a single state
• Had a low Reputation Score, but staff and doctors were resistant to launching an online reputation management solution to boost the volume of their online healthcare reviews

The Challenge: Staff and Doctors See ORM as the Enemy

Doctors spend their entire careers working to improve the health of their local community, and it’s very important for them to deliver high-quality care. So it’s disconcerting for them when they’re faced with negative healthcare reviews.

This was also true of the staff and doctors at one large healthcare system that came to Reputation.com for help. Despite their efforts to provide quality care, their facilities had received some less-than-favorable online reviews.

Unfortunately, the feedback was being overlooked.

Without responses to the feedback, the volume of negative reviews began to drown out the positive ones. And if a doctor in the healthcare system had more than three negative reviews, she couldn’t be used for any public events or press.

Before the healthcare system’s reputation could suffer even more, their public relations specialist took action. She presented the concept of Online Reputation Management to the organization. She was surprised to encounter strong resistance from physicians and managers across their entire network of pediatric medical and specialty clinic offices.

“When I first presented the idea of Online Reputation Management, I was considered the enemy. Managers and physicians pushed back and were upset. But now, after putting a program in place, they realize I’m in their corner. They see that reviews — both positive and negative — help them deliver better care.”

~ Public Relations Specialist

The Solution: Using Review Monitoring Data to Secure Buy-in and Take Action

The healthcare system needed to enlist their physicians and managers to build an effective ORM program.

Despite what the physicians and their practice managers wanted to believe, patients were talking online about the quality of care they were receiving from the various clinics. The organization had great stories to tell about patient experience and outcomes, but they weren’t encouraging these patients to share their positive experiences with online healthcare reviews.

Reputation.com was brought in to:

• Help them monitor their online reputation
• Generate reviews more representative of the quality of care they provide
• Respond appropriately to negative feedback
• Identify areas where they could improve operations and patient experience

Each morning, the public relations specialist used Reputation.com’s dashboard to monitor all mentions of the healthcare system’s name in online review sites and in social media.

She encouraged organizational buy-in by sharing positive reviews monthly with department managers, executives, physicians and staff. She sent out negative review notifications daily so that providers and managers could promptly address them. Additionally, the PR team crafted thoughtful, HIPAA-compliant responses to negative reviews, with the help of their risk and practice managers.

To boost positive online review volume, the organization used the platform to request reviews from past patients. The PR specialist and the department heads soon found that the organization’s reinvigorated commitment to providing a great patient experience yielded many positive healthcare reviews.

The Results: Adoption of ORM Platform Yields Impressive Positive Reputation Gains

Reputation.com’s ORM platform helps the healthcare system transform its online reputation by:

• Facilitating buy-in: Once they began seeing review data on a regular basis, physicians and managers understood the true impact online reputation management could have on both referrals and walk-ins. Primary care offices that originally wanted no part in review monitoring now compete with each other to offer better services to increase their review volume and earn more positive reviews.
• Providing actionable data: Using thematic analysis in the platform, the healthcare organization has been able to identify issues by location early and makes operational changes right away that improve the quality of their services and patient care.
• Spreading the word: Managers and providers are now proactively sharing positive reviews via social media and on their website, and recognizing excellent service from physicians and staff. They’re soliciting online feedback from patients to increase review volume and provide prospective consumers with a comprehensive view of the organization’s services and quality of care.

By committing to online reputation management, this 60-clinic healthcare system increased its Reputation Score by more than 150 points and has maintained this significant improvement

You can learn more today by contacting healthcare@reputation.com.