What is the relationship between a hospital or health system's brand and culture?
"We believe brands touch culture in many ways," says Jeffrey Nemetz, founder and managing partner of Health Brand Group. "And the culture must stand in front of the brand and be that brand steward."
Symbiosis: Benefits abound when brand, culture are done right
Both the brand and culture of a healthcare organization enrich the other because the heart of the culture — the people — forms the basis of the brand. When an organization invests in creating a unified brand that reflects the values of the internal and external community, from employees and physicians to patients and families, then the culture will also be consistent and driven by values. Similarly, if leaders build a culture based on the mission, vision and values of the organization, it will become part of its brand.
"We have found that those companies where you admire how they present their brand and manage their brand have done an excellent job of creating it from the inside out, with the understanding of who their internal customers are, from leadership to directors to line staff — anyone involved in the organization who makes up the unified culture," Mr. Nemetz says.
If, however, leaders create a brand from the top down and fail to consult stakeholders in the development phase, the brand will likely be disconnected from the culture, which may cause either the brand to lose value or the people to become disengaged. "The idea is to understand what makes the culture unique and be able to reflect that personality and attributes of that brand so people involved in that organization are connected and see it and feel it," Mr. Nemetz says. "You wouldn't want to create a brand foreign to who they are as a culture."
Keeping in touch with the brand and culture
Because of the connection between healthcare brand and culture, hospital and health system leaders need to stay in tune with both over time. If the organization changes, such as by merging with another entity, it may have to reevaluate its culture and brand. For example, hospitals that become affiliated with a larger health system often change their name or brand to reflect their new identity, which is affected by the different resources and people gained through an affiliation.
Aligning the brand with the culture is important in keeping employees engaged and patients informed. "You come across a lot of organizations that have merged workforces — multiple hospitals coming together — where they leapfrogged over the culture piece. They miss significant opportunities to really get the workforce engaged in a way that will allow them to be productive and to yield the kind of results you're looking for in terms of enterprise growth," Mr. Nemetz says.
As hospitals and health systems turn their focus toward population health and wellness, many are adapting their brand to reflect this shift. For example, Columbus (Ga.) Regional Health, formerly Columbus Regional Healthcare System, changed its tagline from "Your Health. Our Mission." to "Pursue Your Healthy" to highlight its goal to help people live healthy lives. "With the notion of accountable care organizations, brand is going to be more valuable than ever before," Mr. Nemetz says. "Hospitals that in past gave lip service to branding and put it on shoulders of marketing are seeing it now as a C-suite initiative. It's important when you're trying to differentiate yourself as an accountable care organization."
Changing one's brand to emphasize wellness and patient-centeredness may in turn affect the culture. Publicly and visually announcing a commitment to population health sends a message to employees in the organization that leaders are serious about a culture of wellness and keeps leaders accountable.
Alignment leads to retention
Aligning the brand and culture can affect employee recruitment, retention and satisfaction in addition to engagement, according to Mr. Nemetz. "Work on creating a brand that wraps around the entire organization — that [employees] can relate to and feel they're contributing to in a meaningful way on a daily basis. When you have that, you have a transformed culture, and you're able to retain a workforce that's more productive, has less absenteeism, with passion and power to catapult the organization to achieve [its] growth objectives."
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