Aug. 21, 2008 at 3:35pm

Three principles for crisis communications

Posted by Shari Campbell in Internal Communications, Media Relations, Planning and Strategy
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Intel. Odwalla. Jack in the Box. Alaska Air Lines.

These are just a few of the companies that came to mind earlier this week when I discussed with a client the impact of a potential crisis.

Of course, no crisis is the best scenario. And as hospital public relations and marketing professionals, there’s much we can do to prepare our organizations to handle a crisis before it ever happens.

With credit to Katie Delahaye Paine, who provides great insight about crisis management in her book “Measuring Public Relationships,” I’d suggest you consider the following basic ideas:

The relationship principle. Simply put, an organization can withstand a crisis better if it has solid, trusted relationships with key stakeholders.

But does your hospital or health system truly listen to your audiences? What is being written or said about you in blogs, newsrooms and the employee break room? Is your reputation that of a caring “Nurse Nancy” or “trusted Dr. Bailey” or are you viewed as the “arrogant Dr. McSteamy?”

A crisis can strike at any time, in any organization. Do your organization a favor and check its “relationship pulse” today.

The practice principle. Ask yourself how quickly you can bang out a news release on the latest and greatest new treatment option or expanded service. Now ask yourself how quickly you could write messages and address the media if your hospital amputated the wrong leg of a diabetic patient, or gave the wrong dosage of medication to a premature infant who died as a result? Or what if the neighbors showed up at your town’s city council meeting to protest your hospital’s much-needed expansion plan?

Human nature is to tackle the long list of assignments others expect from us. It’s much more difficult to take time to plan – and practice for – the unexpected.

At one of my past hospital marketing jobs, we put media training in our budget every year and used a local PR firm to help train physicians and key spokespeople. (Please, don’t take this suggestion as self-serving … we had too much to do already, and the consultants made sure it happened!) This kept our skills up-to-date and allowed us to “practice” with real-life scenarios culled from other hospitals and our favorite TV dramas.

The action principle. My colleague Kathleen Deakins wrote in an earlier post about the use of “compassion-action-context” messages during a crisis. Post-crisis research and past experience suggests action may be the most important step you take if your hospital is faced with a crisis.

In her book, Paine tracks media coverage over time for several notable crises. Her advice, backed by measurement, “A well-managed crisis gets all the bad news over with up front by aggressively dealing with the problem.”

What policies or practices are you reviewing as a result of the crisis? Has an employee or physician been reprimanded or lost their job? What clear action steps is your organization taking to make sure “this” crisis is never repeated again?

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