SITUATION

The Chattanooga Heart Institute at CHI Memorial in Chattanooga, TN offers a highly specialized team of electrophysiologists for people with heart rhythm disorders. Patients often suffer fatigue, dizziness, shortness of breath and other debilitating symptoms, even while being treated by their primary care physician or general cardiologist. Most are not aware that a higher level of specialization is available or even needed to achieve a better quality of life.

The Chattanooga Heart Institute at CHI Memorial decided to introduce the Heart Rhythm Center as a specialized destination for heart rhythm disorders. The success of this new Heart Rhythm Center depended on the right target audience appreciating the higher level of specialized expertise available to them nearby. However, the campaign could not alienate the very primary care physicians and cardiologists who would be the referral sources to the Center.

SOLUTION

The most authentic way to introduce the Heart Rhythm Center was through the team of physician experts themselves. Their own passion and expertise could differentiate them from more general practitioners and garner trust from patients who were still suffering. With years of experience interviewing physicians, we were able to draw these highly trained electrophysiologists out as the empathetic people they were.

RESULTS

The campaign not only built trust and higher expectations from patients and their families, it created demand for the individual physicians themselves. Patients called or requested appointments saying, “I want that doctor.” Volume went up more than 38% versus the prior year. Since the entire team was featured in the campaign, all of the physicians benefited.