Resource Library

How can a health system develop optimal new wellness programs tailored specifically to its unique market? That's the challenge Fairview Health Services, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, faced in 2015 as part of its strategy to develop new services that would meet the needs of the community, generate new sources of revenue in a retail delivery model, and extend its presence in Minnesota and the upper Midwest.

The leadership at University Medical Center of Princeton in Plainsboro, New Jersey, part of Princeton HealthCare System, established a goal to grow maternity services at a time when US Census projections showed a steady decline in women of childbearing age across the region. A couple of years earlier, the health system built a larger replacement facility on a well-traveled stretch of US Route 1, making the respected community teaching hospital more visible and accessible to a growing population in central New Jersey. And although this provided an important opportunity to target a new audience, the marketing team wrestled with how best to develop the right marketing strategy.

In today's increasingly vertically, horizontally, and virtually integrated healthcare landscape, a service line focus on core diseases and conditions can be an effective strategy for managing patient care and boosting market share. But while clinical service lines - from cardiology to orthopedics to neurosciences - have gained considerable traction elsewhere in healthcare, they are much less common in children's hospitals. This is unfortunate because, like other health systems, children's hospitals are increasingly focused on providing care outside the hospital itself.