Tooting its own horn a priority
Hospital trustees donned hard hats Tuesday night to walk through a maze of shiny steel as the interior framework of the new Allen County Hospital takes shape. ONCE BACK at the current hospital, trustees turned their attention to promoting the new hospital and hired Cindy Parks of Parks Communications, a public relations firm based in Leawood. IN OTHER NEWS, trustees approved payment of bills once Bruce Jones of Health Facilities Group, the architectural firm overseeing the construction of the new hospital, has approved the first bill to Murray Company for $1,321,239. Other bills and their amounts are to consultants Siegfried Bingham for $2,978 and a total of $248,267 to Cerner for its electronic health records program.
Sheldon Streeter, project manager with Murray Construction, led the hour-long tour, highlighting the spacious patient rooms, surgery quarters, emergency and radiology departments, birthing suites and the impressive front lobby whose barrel-shaped ceiling reaches some 25 feet high and is equipped with skylights.
Although the new hospital is some 20,000 feet smaller than the current hospital’s footprint, its single story and more open layout makes it feel every bit as big.
Parks has worked the past several years developing advertising for the hospital on contract through Hospital Corporation of America, which leases ACH from Allen County.
Her first priority will be to help trustees settle on a new name for the hospital.
An informal poll conducted by the Iola Register received 74 responses, of which the majority favored Allen County Regional Medical Center. That name did not sit well with trustees, which prompted them to seek the opinion of a marketing expert.
Parks also will help trustees create a “brand” for the hospital, both visual and verbal, which can be used on hospital stationery, its website, and in press releases, which will help set the hospital apart from its current look once it moves into its new facility as well as when it breaks away from operations of HCA.
Parks recommended Reactor Design Studio, Kansas City, a graphics design business, to handle the hospital’s new look and its move to a broader market, including cable television.
“The hospital has had a habit of going great guns and then dropping the ball midway,” Parks said of the hospital’s marketing efforts. “There also seems to be a ton of competition for patients in southeast Kansas. It’s important that you build a new brand and identity, especially as you break away from HCA.”
Trustees agreed to pay Parks her fee of $75 an hour to come up with a name for the new hospital, but held off until Ron Baker, the incoming chief executive officer who begins Jan. 28, committing further services with Parks or Reactor Design Studio. Trustees also will need to select a business to manage its website once it departs from HCA.
Larry Peterson, chief financial officer and interim CEO, said the decision to have HCA continue to lease the hospital remains until further clarification of Medicare guidelines is to be had. Peterson did not give a date as to when the matter will be settled but intimated it will be sooner rather than later.
