Case Study: Service Line Building
North Fulton Regional Hospital Level II Trauma Center 

Situation

North Fulton Regional Hospital was completing the renovation and expansion of its Level II Trauma Center and Emergency Department. Recent research had indicated that while consumers believed trauma center capabilities reflected a higher level of clinical care for a hospital, a majority of consumers in North Fulton’s service area were unaware of the hospital’s designation as a Level II Trauma Center. Max2o was hired to assist the hospital with promoting the trauma designation, along with positioning the hospital more favorably among area healthcare consumers.

Objectives

• Promote the expanded Emergency Services and Level II Trauma Center to healthcare consumers within the hospital’s close-in primary service area
• Begin to align emergency services with orthopedics and neurosurgery, two additional important hospital service lines
• Leverage the trauma designation to increase perception of quality for the hospital overall

Strategy

• Max2o recommended an eight-week media campaign for the primary service area that included 0:30 and 0:10 cable television commercials augmented by outdoor, print and newspaper inserts.
• Creative approach focused on major emergency and trauma care rather than on minor emergencies to underscore the level II trauma designation as well as meet NFRH’s business objectives.

Results

The campaign launched in September 2006 is still underway. Immediate anecdotal evidence from community residents suggests that the media buy has been effective in reaching consumers in the primary service area and that consumers are responding favorably to the level II trauma designation message. While campaign metrics are still being gathered, the hospital is evaluating a continuation and expansion of the emergency services promotion.