Healthcare Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships: An Insider’s Guide to Communications, Second Edition
Some are shopping. Some are selling. But everywhere, in every market, healthcare providers are in play.
In this age of disruptive transformation, consolidation and integration is the key to survival—if not prosperity—for many hospitals and physicians. If you’ve not yet formed a new partnership, you’re probably thinking about it. And if you’re not considering it, another system is likely eyeballing yours.
However, a healthy partnership begins long before any deal is inked. It begins with good communications.
This guide offers practical “rules” to build a communications strategy that attracts and maintains positive momentum from the exploration phase, through the letter of intent to post-merger integration. With authentic and proven advice from professionals whose healthcare transaction experience spans the country, this book will help you:
- Gain a broader understanding of the foundational elements of a healthcare partnership and what they mean for communicating the deal
- Leverage the political strength your health system already possesses to mobilize advocates and neutralize opposition
- Ask the right questions, identify critical audiences, build messages that resonate, activate your digital ecosystem and troubleshoot challenging scenarios
- Turn practical steps into an executable plan for your partnership communications—even after the deal closes, or if a deal sours
Click here to access chapter previews.
Published: November 2019
Page count: 158
Dimensions: 7 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-64535-000-2
Table of Contents
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Section 1: Changes in the Strategic Partnership Environment
The Evolution of Healthcare Partnerships
Why Deals Fail, Why Deals Succeed
Communications and the Art of Change
Section 2: Partnership Communications Ground Rules
Words to Know: The Vocabulary of Partnerships
The Politics to Know: Structuring Communications as a Single Political Campaign
Section 3: The 10 Rules of Engagement
Rule 1: Get Smart, Stay Smart
Rule 2: Own the Message
Rule 3: Be (Responsibly) Transparent
Rule 4: Think Like the Opposition
Rule 5: The Messenger Is a Message
Rule 6: Get the Talk Right Inside, Then Out
Rule 7: An Army of Advocates
Rule 8: Overcommunicate
Rule 9: Be Nimble
Rule 10: Don’t Dance to Someone Else’s Music
Section 4: Great Partnerships—Before and After the Deal
Positioning Your Organization as a Compelling Partner in an Age of Discerning Partners
One Word: Integration, Integration, Integration
Section 5: The Power of Digital Media
Joining and Shaping Today’s Conversation
Building a Deal Website
Leveraging Social Platforms
The Necessity of a Social Media Policy and Response Protocols
Section 6: Troubleshooting: What to Do When...
Faith-Based to Secular Conversion
Not-for-Profit to Investor-Owned Conversion
Name Change
Antitrust Concerns
Winning the Public Referendum
Facility Repurposing
If the Partnership Fails
About the Author
David Jarrard is a nationally recognized expert in healthcare transaction communications and CEO of Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock, Inc., a healthcare strategic communications consultancy focused on providers. With offices in Nashville and Chicago, the firm ranks among the top 10 in the United States with more than 500 clients in 40 states.
Over the past 25 years, the professionals at Jarrard Inc. have built and managed more hospital partnership campaigns than any other healthcare communications firm in the country. Jarrard Inc.’s client roster includes the nation’s most prestigious health systems and academic medical centers, regional hospitals, and health services companies.
Under Jarrard’s leadership, the firm has earned a national reputation for helping healthcare systems and health services companies use their public and political strengths to succeed in high-stakes moments—times of change, challenge, and opportunity. That includes all imaginable mergers and acquisitions activity, crises, intensive change management initiatives, and strategic positioning. In other words, tough, transformational stuff.
Jarrard is a sought-after thought leader—from published works to speaking engagements at healthcare-industry conferences—and is on the teaching faculty of the American Hospital Association’s professional group for hospital strategic planners and communicators.
He also serves on the board of the PR Council and the editorial advisory board for Healthcare Insight Magazine.
Learn more about the firm at www.jarrardinc.com.
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