Helping
consumers nationwide, The Urgent Care Association of America’s (UCAOA) “Urgency or Emergency?” campaign educated patients about
healthcare options, including urgent care centers and emerging free-standing
emergency departments, to help select the best option for their needs.
To start, LCWA
conducted a consumer survey to ascertain the level of awareness and
understanding about urgent care services and drive audience selection and
messaging. The survey found that the vast majority of patients understood
urgent care offerings, and it also provided insights into how patients choose
their healthcare options. LCWA also worked with UCAOA to mine the data from its annual
benchmarking report to determine trends, including overall growth of centers,
which services were most utilized and diagnoses seen most often, and insurance
and payment data for comparison to other healthcare destinations.
Through
additional secondary research, we learned that 27 percent of all ER visits
could take place at an urgent care center or retail clinic, generating
potential costs savings of approximately $4.4 billion annually, and that 98
percent of patients who visit urgent care centers are in the appropriate care
setting.
With these
findings in hand, we aimed outreach to the general public to inform them about
the growing segment of free-standing emergency departments in the country,
narrowing our target audiences from general consumers to millennial moms, who
were shown to be more confused about health care choices, and to value the
convenience and affordability offered by urgent care. The program’s objectives
were:
- Educating patients about the role of urgent care as a high-quality, affordable and convenient medical option for immediate but non-emergency, non-life threatening situations
- Increasing public knowledge of free-standing emergency departments to decrease consumer confusion
- Driving consumers to UCAOA social channels and web pages, including the custom landing page to locate the closest urgent care center, www.whereisurgentcare.com

For the busy
back-to-school period, LCWA narrowed our focus to millennial moms, to educate
young parents that urgent care is the best option for children’s illnesses and
injuries during the school year. We reached this key audience through a
back-to-school press release, collaboration with top mommy bloggers and an
#UrgentCarePrepared hashtag contest.
The program
garnered high-level results, such as 585 million media impressions with a media
value of nearly $3 million, in publications such as the Wall Street Journal,
NPR and Bloomberg, all with at least one key program message included in the
article. On the social media and blogger side, program activities achieved
nearly 45 million impressions.
As the program
concluded, results showed that LCWA was able to educate patients on emerging
healthcare options, drive interest in industry growth based on regional
expansion, and keep UCAOA top-of-mind with key audiences while strengthening
thought leadership.
The Urgent Care Association of America won a Gold Trumpet from the Publicity Club of Chicago in the category of Marketing - Healthcare.
The Urgent Care Association of America won a Gold Trumpet from the Publicity Club of Chicago in the category of Marketing - Healthcare.
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