Boston-based Partners HealthCare is seeking input from employees to develop a new name that better reflects its academic medical centers, according to the Boston Business Journal.
Partners HealthCare has spent months considering whether to adopt a new name. The health system has a task force at the executive level focused on the issue, and it's seeking a marketing team to help determine the scope and cost of a rebrand, according to the report.
The health system recently confirmed it is moving forward with the process. Partners is now "working to develop a new name," President and CEO Anne Klibanski, MD, wrote in an email survey to employees on Sept. 18.
"Our founding members, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, have powerful brand names. We are now assessing how these names can take on a more prominent role in our identity," Dr. Klibanski wrote in the email, according to the Boston Business Journal.
Regarding the survey sent to employees, a spokesperson told the Boston Business Journal, "It is critically important to us to include the opinions of our 75,000 employees as we move forward in this process."
Adopting a name that incorporates its well-known hospital brands could help Partners gain credibility in the national market, Tom Douglis, founder and principal of Douglis Group, told the Boston Business Journal.
By ditching the name it adopted 25 years ago, Partners also has a chance to choose a new name that means something to patients.
"The name 'Partners' means something to people in the business community and government leaders, but it is not defining to patients," Ellen Lutch Bender, a hospital consultant, told the Boston Globe in July. "Rebranding is not a simple undertaking, but branding is very important to an organization — it frames corporate identity, it tells a story."
The Boston Globe previously reported that Partners' rebranding costs could exceed $100 million. This week, a Partners spokesperson told the Boston Business Journal any estimates about the cost of the rebrand are "purely speculative." Partners CFO Peter K. Markell said the total cost has not been determined, according to the report.
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