If You Build It, They Will Come: Marketing Your Wound Clinic to Its Fullest Potential

  After spending much hard work, time, and money planning your wound clinic, you might expect that you only need to open the doors and your appointment book will fill. Wrong! All too often, we do not give marketing its due. But is it marketing— or education — that is required?

  Because wound care is a relatively new (but growing!) specialty in medicine, wound clinics need to achieve two important goals among the medical and general community: make the wound clinic’s existence known and, more importantly, provide education on wound care as a specialty and how patients benefit from wound clinic services. Depending on your hospital and community demographics and competition, this may not be as easy as it sounds. You will need to rely on your greatest asset — your staff.

The Medical Director

  The most effective way to encourage referring physicians to avail themselves of your services is through education provided by their colleague, the Medical Director of the wound clinic. Physician-to-physician communication is key to fostering the trust of referring physicians who will be sending patients to the wound clinic. Conversely, if the wound clinic message is not offered with passion and a level of education that portrays the physician as a specialist in the field of wound care, your efforts can backfire. Make sure your physician “champion” is well-respected, well-spoken, and well-educated in relevant areas — he/she is now marketing him/herself as a wound care subspecialist. Among the Medical Director’s many clinical and administrative responsibilities, marketing should be a top priority.

  Center of excellence. The Medical Director can perform many valuable tasks to help market the wound clinic and educate the medical staff. First and foremost is establishing your wound clinic as a center of excellence and the physician and clinical team as the go-to people for non-healing wounds.

  Putting a “face” on the clinic. Initially, the clinic director should engage the wound center’s Medical Director for as many lecture/speaking opportunities as possible. These can range from 5-minute introductions of the wound center and its services to important sections of the hospital (case management, social services, and all medical sections) to CME/CE accredited lectures at local wound care conferences, home health care agencies, nursing homes, and pharmaceutical events. In addition, the Medical Director should be present at all medical staff meetings and sit on committees to gain exposure. Another opportunity is for the Medical Director to author an article (or even better, an ongoing series) in the hospital newsletter to the medical staff. All opportunities for inservice, education, or simply delivering literature should be utilized.

  Also, your Medical Director should get in touch with other community medical directors (hospice, home health agencies, nursing homes) to introduce him/herself and your services and ask them to mention the wound clinic at their administrative meetings.

  Keep the cards and letters coming. Communication is key. An effective way to reach and maintain contact with potential referring physicians is through written correspondence. When your wound clinic opens, have your Medical Director send an introductory letter (highlight catchy stats). Include an overview of your clinic and your marketing materials (eg, brochures and business cards). Explain how to refer patients. Include your clinic hours. A few months later, a more specific letter designed to educate on services provided by the clinic should be sent — eg, discussing the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in diabetic lower extremity wounds. It is helpful to include a copy of a recently published abstract to validate your message. Follow up on these “disease specific letters” quarterly.

  Follow-up on referrals. The Medical Director should send a letter (and even better, make a phone call) to referring physicians for every new patient and keep them up to date on their patients’ progress. Remember, your business depends on these referrals. Extend the courtesy of thanking physicians for the referrals — this also provides a chance to ask if additional patients might require your services. Above all else, take great care of the patient.

The Clinic Director

  Although the Medical Director is a vital part to direct physician referrals, the driving force behind wound care marketing is the Clinic Director. Like the Medical Director, the Clinic Director should make marketing the wound clinic a top priority. Clinic Directors should become the sales reps for the wound clinic and spend a large amount of their time visiting physician offices, urgent care centers, ERs, home health agencies, nursing homes, and the like. Clinicians refer based on name recognition and memory. Your wound clinic director should become a familiar face — eg, when the wound clinic opens and at in-services. Another great way to offer the personal touch is for the Clinic Director to hand-deliver follow-up progress notes on patients and explain how well they are doing. Make sure to include color pictures in all patient files.

  Familiarity breeds business. Coordinate exposure at bigger events, sponsor booths at medical fairs, and co-sponsor CME events with pharmaceutical companies. Administratively, provide information about the wound clinic to the hospital with regard to brochure development, website maintenance, and signage. Even if the wound clinic is off the main campus, it should still have a presence at medical staff and hospital section meetings. The Clinic Director should help drive and maintain the hospital support necessary to market the clinic; therefore, working closely with the hospital public relations and marketing department is imperative. “Clinic updates” should appear frequently in the hospital and medical staff newsletters and may include case studies, letters of appreciation, and any new clinical information that has recently been published.

  A plus for the hospital. Hospital administrators should understand that a good inpatient and outpatient wound care program has many benefits — improved patient satisfaction, decreased liability, decreased length of stay, and clinical continuity as an outpatient. The Clinic Director should explore the possibilities for hospital investment in public media campaigns that include large visible signage, billboards, and radio, TV, and newspaper advertising. Mass mailings should be sent to physicians to include propaganda such as brochures, cardex cards, magnets, pens, and other items that get your name out. Expensive? Perhaps. But if the hospital is willing to spend the money, there should definitely be a tracking mechanism to measure the success of the effort.

The Best Investment: Knowing Your “Stuff”

  Nothing makes for better marketing than providing the best patient care in a cost-effective manner. Spend the initial dollars to train your staff, obtain certifications, and develop protocols so your clinicians become known as local experts, providing excellent and efficient patient care. Such news travels fast. Also, high job satisfaction and a happy work environment speak volumes for healing outcomes. Explain to your physician audience that not only are you going to heal difficult wounds, but also that your program will allow physicians to focus on what they do best, freeing up hours by sending challenging and expensive wound care patients your way. Let the surgeons operate and let the wound clinic take over pre- and postoperative wound care.

Many Happy Returns

  Overall, wound care as a medical specialty is on the cusp of exploding. Project your enthusiasm at being a part of this new era in wound care and how it will provide improved care for so many people. If you build a strong marketing platform and convey your passion for what you do, the patients will come.

  Dr. Morrison is Medical Director, Bayfront Medical Center Wound Care and Hyperbaric Center; Medical Director, St. Joseph’s Hospital Wound Care and Hyperbaric Center; Associate Chief Medical Officer, Medical Multiplex, Inc.; President, Advanced Wound Systems; and President, Nautilus Health Care Group, Tierra Verde, Fla.