A primary objective of any health care system is promoting the wellness of the community. It’s pretty much your raison d’être. A great way to promote health is with wellness campaigns that speak to the health conditions your community faces.
Organizations can target these programs (for example, health wellness campaigns addressing opioid use in areas where it’s rampant), or campaigns can take on more common health problems such as obesity and tobacco use. Community wellness programs and campaigns not only position your organization as a health leader, but they can also actively engage your current patients and work to generate future ones.
But showing can be a lot more effective than telling. To that end, we scoured the internet for great health and wellness campaign examples. Here are a few we liked — and why they hit the mark.
There’s so much to like about Emerson Hospital’s community health program Vaping: What You Need to Know. Let’s start with the fact that it truly is targeted at the community. Emerson did a youth risk-behavior survey and found that vaping is the “drug of choice” for local middle and high school students. To address the problem, they developed (with the help of one of their own emergency room doctors, herself the parent of an area teen) a straightforward, easily digested wellness campaign sharing some of the health risks associated with vaping.
Emerson Health’s vaping infographic.Don’t underestimate the value of a good wellness campaign slogan. After all, the first step to getting the public to interact with your wellness program is to grab their attention. St. Peter’s Health Partners’ smoking-cessation campaign named The Butt Stops Here does just that. A little clever wordplay can be all it takes to pique someone’s interest enough to get them to check out—and hopefully sign up for—your wellness program.
A timeline used in St. Peter’s Health Partners The Butt Stops Here wellness campaign.Partner up if you can. The University of Chicago’s Healing Hurt People-Chicago is a collaborative wellness program between the University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital and the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice at Drexel University in Philadelphia. The program helps violently injured kids heal both physically and emotionally. We love that this health and wellness campaign does exactly what it sets out to do—heal hurt people. And it heals using some innovative methods, including inviting participants to take part in Project Fire, a glassblowing and trauma-recovery program.
Wellness campaigns involving regular physical activity abound. It’s a boon to anyone who wants to get healthier by getting more fit. But how about a community wellness program guided by a health care provider that utilizes America’s vast trail network? That’s the premise behind Prescribe-a-Trail, an hour-or-so long walk led by doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists and other health care workers who discuss a health topic while you walk together! Baylor Scott & White Health offers a similar program called Walk with a Doc.
Screenshot of Baylor Scott & White’s Walk with a Doc web page.Employees who receive wellness benefits are generally healthier, happier and more productive. In addition, they have better morale and lower absenteeism. And when a health care system can bring employee wellness right to a person’s office, as NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens does with their employee wellness room, it’s a win-win. Cedars-Sinai is another health system that brings a wellness campaign right to where it’s needed most. Their Coach for Kids, a mobile medical unit that heads into disadvantaged Los Angeles neighborhoods, offers kids free preventive and primary medical care.
Cedars‑Sinai COACH (Community Outreach Assistance for Children’s Health) for Kids mobile medical clinic.
Mayo Clinic offers a number of self-guided wellness programs. One, called Discover Gratitude, is designed to help improve mental health through daily journaling. How does it work? Here is an excerpt from the site: “As soon as you register, your monthlong journey will begin. You’ll receive a welcome email that includes instructions and links to the downloadable journal sheets. You’ll also receive a few motivational emails along the way and be invited to complete a simple evaluation at the end of the program.”
Sharp Health’s Think First—Use Your Mind to Protect Your Body program, uses the expertise of specialized health care workers and individuals who have undergone life-altering brain and spinal cord injuries to encourage people to make safer, smarter choices to prevent disastrous injuries. We really like how this health and wellness campaign uses real people to tell real stories, giving the information hard-to-dismiss authenticity.
Image from Sharp Health’s website of a teen educating kids and young adults about the risk of brain and spinal cord injury through ThinkFirst San Diego.Health care systems aren’t just in the business of getting people healthy. They’re also in the business of keeping people healthy. That’s where wellness programs — from breastfeeding to bereavement support, blood pressure to cancer screenings, weight loss to stress reduction classes — come into play. Creating strong, engaging and relevant wellness programs makes for a stronger, healthier community and, by default, a more effective and trusted health care system.
You don’t have to do it alone. A content partner who’s 100% dedicated to healthcare can help you make the most of wellness campaigns. The team of writers, editors and strategists at WG Content can help you create custom content for health and wellness campaigns, so you can better connect with patients and consumers. Drop us a line anytime to learn more.
The original version of this page was published at: https://wgcontent.com/blog/hospital-wellness-campaigns/
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