Case Studies: Minnesota Heart
Minnesota Heart Clinic
Cardiovascular CT Imaging in a Specialty Heart Clinic Setting
The Heart Center of Indiana Cardiovascular CT Imaging in a Specialty Heart Hospital Setting The Beginning
Minnesota Heart Clinic is dedicated solely to cardiac care, providing a full range of integrated cardiovascular services since 1985. The facility now includes CT Imaging, Nuclear Cardiology, Echocardiology, and Electrophysiology. Affiliated with the hospitals Fairview Southdale, Fairview Ridges, Fairview Northland Regional, and Fairview Lakes Regional Medical Center, Minnesota Heart Clinic is a recognized leader in cardiology services for the community. When Minnesota Heart Clinic began looking at CT systems over a year ago all equipment vendors were competing for their business. Siemens added value to their sale by incorporating a "starter" custom marketing package to accompany the CT order. As a result, Siemens earned the business. Recognizing that CT is a new business for cardiologists, Siemens engaged RED Marketing to assist Minnesota Heart in "getting the word out" to patients and referring physicians with profitability and maximum utilization as fiscal goals.
The Vision
Like many healthcare providers, Minnesota Heart Clinic seeks to have the best available technology for it s patients. By turning to CT more frequently in recent years for cardiac and coronary artery imaging and when patients have had abnormal nuclear medicine scans, the facility has been able to image and evaluate the existence and extent of coronary blockage. In fact, The Heart Clinic has had what Dr. Greg Helmer, M.D., Director of Minnesota Heart Clinic's Cardiovascular and CT Center, describes as "robust growth" in CT procedures. The volume of CT scans performed on the facility's 64-slice scanner since the January implementation began at 3 scans per day and steadily increased each month to 8 scans per day in June.
The Solution
With the implementation of a new CT scanner and little to no marketing knowledge, the Minnesota Heart Center welcomed the custom marketing package from RED Marketing in December 2004. Early in its utilization of marketing, the clinic experienced benefits on a number of fronts. Prior to RED's engagement, the folks at Minnesota Heart didn't possess any custom marketing materials. Custom collateral development was key to developing the right messaging for the cardiology practice, its imaging services, and the 18+ physicians and physician's assistants on staff. In addition to collateral development, Minnesota Heart participated in RED's custom field marketing training, an important element in the growth of their business. As a result, RED Marketing taught Minnesota Heart how to educate the multi-specialty referring physicians and patients on the benefits of CT and showed them that it is the Heart Clinic's responsibility to raise community awareness about the latest technology available to the public with the 64-slice CT.
Larry Gunderson, Minnesota Heart's administrator, says, "One of the key areas that differentiate RED marketing from other marketing agencies is their training division, in combination with the right marketing materials. RED Marketing knows how to teach others about marketing." Education works, because currently Minnesota Heart scan results are approximately 8-10 patients per day with a healthy study mix including calcium scans, carotids, renals, CTA, and peripherals. Leveraging their hospital relationships, they have radiologists at the adjoining hospital read lung fields and conventional studies (head, body, etc.).
Minnesota Heart was able to provide easy-to-understand explanations of the latest in CT technology, which increased patient knowledge and confidence with the consistent delivery of patient education materials delivered to referring physicians. "We are continually researching ways to improve the diagnosis and treatment of our patients," says Gregory A. Helmer, M.D., Director of Research at Minnesota Heart. "We bring the most promising new advancements to our practice as quickly as possible. We believe that the innovative and cutting-edge technology provided by the Siemens Somotom Sensation 64 will result in a paradigm shift in our treatment and understating of vascular disease." RED Marketing's creative team was responsible for explaining the cutting edge technology in easy to understand patient terminology with the brochures and practice folders they designed for Minnesota Heart.
Business Benefits
"The initial investment in marketing seemed high ($150,000) but we compared prices and found that RED Marketing was very competitive and knew that it was important to be the first to market, and to give a good blast to the public for maximum results. We required a company that had experience in imaging with successful outcomes. Their model utilizes a combination of some media, a referring physicians outreach program and public relations to educate our community," a Minnesota spokesperson says. Specifically, RED Marketing delivered a custom plan that included ads and editorials in the Twin Cities Business Journal, Minnesota St. Paul Magazine and advertorials in US News and World Report. RED Marketing proposed a combination of purchasing ad space and combining editorials (PR function). Currently, the volume is 8-10 patients per day, in which 45% of the studies are internally referred and the remaining 55% are an even split between self referrals and outside referring doctors in the area.
The Clinical Benefits
In addition to seeing an immediate response to the marketing efforts by current volume results, the marketing package extended beyond volume to clinical benefits. In particular, we found the success of Minnesota Heart's CT launch was proportional to physician participation. The educational program prompted the internal physicians to continue their marketing efforts.
In May 2005, Minnesota Heart captured headline news on WCCO News, a local CBS affiliate.The feature highlighted the 64-slice CT with three real life stories of people encountering cardiac issues. Minnesota Heart physicians had a longtime relationship with this television channel, but never produced real volume results until now. With confidence, they pursued them with a lifestyle story that tied in their technology, all independent of RED's help. As important as having a marketing and educational program, it is best complemented when the practice, in particular, the cardiologists, continue the trend of marketing to the community and referring physicians. RED Marketing encourages and teaches the doctors they work with to continue to educate their community after the agency leaves the nest.
Beyond the Hospital Walls
While it is too soon for The Heart Center to calculate specific yearly monetary advantages of RED's custom marketing package, Minnesota Heart Clinic is on the map for the latest in CT technology in the Edina, MN area. With the initial marketing and education process developed by RED Marketing, along with their current marketing efforts, Minnesota Heart now has a two-week patient waiting list. Their success justifies their purchase.
"With better studies," Dr. Norman Chapel says, "we can perform more diagnostic studies, keep our referring doctors happy, and increase our volume in the future." They have added additional revenue by providing peripheral exams with an anticipated reimbursement of $700- $800.
In addition, the Heart Center wants to promote its enhanced CTA capabilities within the community so more patients can take advantage of the health benefits. "We can offer this as a service to people in this area to find either disease and send them to the heart cath lab for a procedure, or, if they are disease-free, to avoid the procedure altogether," Dr. Chapel says.