In a presidential election year, healthcare is a hot topic for the American public and news media. In a recent CBS News/The New York Times Poll, 42% of Americans were “very concerned” about not having enough money to pay for their current healthcare.

Prices of healthcare, insurance, drug companies and other issues are filling the news and healthcare organizations are turning to communication firms to assist in their image and message development.

TVG regularly provides medical and pharmaceutical clients with communications strategy and planning, as well as execution support for product launches, trade shows, and engagement with national and trade media. The industry represents unique communications challenges, with extensive use of technical jargon and complicated medical issues and concepts that must be “translated” for the general public. Also, the industry relies heavily on word-of-mouth communications channels to deliver its messages and information.

In a recent communications campaign TVG was faced with this common healthcare challenge of delivering technical health messages to the public, while also maintaining an industry level of excellence and thought leadership for the client.

To better communicate the goal of complex series of regulatory reforms, TVG created the 360°/365 brand for the Missouri Foundation for Health and Missouri Department of Health and Senior Service. This initiative to reform the emergency medical care system across the state is based on a TVG-designed, easy-to-read visual aid – The EMCS Process Diagram – that demonstrates a patient’s path through the Emergency Medical Care System.

Faced with the challenge of informing audiences with vastly different levels of medical knowledge, TVG created a Web site which speaks to both the lay public and the medical community. The site also provides collateral materials – brochures, fact sheets, bios, and PowerPoint presentations – to provide stakeholders and the media with background on the program.

With the help of expert doctors, TVG identified reform champions to communicate the messages of 360°/365 to their communities and constituents. To capitalize on nationwide EMCS issues, TVG monitors media coverage of topics related to the 360°/365 reform goals. Throughout the process, TVG was able to effectively communicate with the medical audience while also capturing clips on some of Missouri’s largest print, radio, television and online outlets.

To best serve the needs of the healthcare and medical community, communication experts need to be experts in delivering medical information. It is complicated and cluttered industry but with life-saving messages to deliver, it can be very rewarding.

Contact us at tvg@vandivergroup.com or send comments to blog@vandivergroup.com.