As of Wednesday, there is a new name (and tagline and logo) in Georgia's healthcare market.
Central Georgia Health System in Macon has rebranded itself — which includes the Medical Center of Central Georgia and more than 30 unique entities — as Navicent Health, unifying each facility and service line under one brand for the first time.
Though the system's officials had toyed with the idea of rebranding about five years ago, the process began in earnest about nine months ago, according to Ninfa Saunders, DHA, MBA, MSN, the system's president and CEO. "As we find ourselves in the national space… [we] thought it would be time to look at an umbrella name," she says, since the former name, Central Georgia Health System, invoked a more regional presence.
To start the process, system officials held several focus groups with a variety of people — current and former patients, physicians, employees, current and former board members and other members of the community. Throughout what Dr. Saunders calls the "discovery process," certain themes kept coming up, such as keeping the patient at the center and coordinating care for them in a way that is well orchestrated and not confusing.
Drawing on those themes as inspiration, the system coined a new word, "navicent" as a combination of two words: navigation and center. "Navigation" represents the health system's focus on helping patients navigate the healthcare system, and "center" for keeping patients at the center of everything.
The system also drew on this inspiration for a new logo. According to Dr. Saunders, there is an "energy" around the system's clinicians and employees to help patients get better. So, the logo features circles surrounding a figure of a person, which "signifies the patient being in the center of what we do," she says.
The new name and logo, as well as the new tagline — "Everything about us, is all about you" — embody what came out during the focus groups, according to Dr. Saunders. "[We were] true to form and authentic in what we found during discovery," she says.
Facilities within the system will retain their names, but Navicent Health will be tagged on to the existing name. For instance, Pine Pointe Hospice and Palliative Care will become Pine Pointe Hospice, Navicent Health and The Medical Center of Central Georgia will become Medical Center, Navicent Health.
Because the name was kept a surprise until it was unveiled Wednesday, rolling out the new brand to all locations is expected to take about a year. Some things, like the website and lab coats, will be rebranded this week.