Rebecca Clyde: hi good morning everyone, this is Rebecca Clive joining you here from bako Ai and i'm really excited to be able to introduce our guest today, Chris pace.
Rebecca Clyde: Who really needs no introduction, but i'll do one anyway, he is the chief digital marketing Officer of banner health.
Rebecca Clyde: And long time you know great friend and partner to all of us here at Barclay I so Chris thanks for having us here this morning and joining us from your your mountain.
Rebecca Clyde: lodging location for the for the weekend, but we appreciate we we were able to steal you away for a few months, how are you this morning.
Chris Pace : doing fantastic it is.
Chris Pace : 60 degrees and i'm in the pines and there's.
Chris Pace : No sun blazing down, so it is, it is a good day to be alive.
Rebecca Clyde: Exactly exactly for all those you know we normally live in phoenix where it's quite hot during this time of year so it's nice to when we can get away.
Rebecca Clyde: Alright, so Chris you know, for those of us for those who are on the line we're seeing you, for the first time or really you know joining us on this webinar series, for the first time.
Rebecca Clyde: Would you be able to just give us a little bit of background on yourself, you know your career trajectory to this incredible role that you have at banner as the chief digital marketing officer and then also.
Rebecca Clyde: about better health because you have really changed a lot in the last couple of years in terms of growth i'm so give us a little rundown on on the business.
Chris Pace : yeah sure, so I was a reluctant and turn into the healthcare space started out because I was good at excel in 1999 I was hired by a consulting firm which.
Chris Pace : wanted me to help them clean up excel templates and I didn't really know what I was doing or why I was doing it, but.
Chris Pace : You know I never i'm endlessly curious, so I tinkered with stuff and then I learned more and more about healthcare and then fast forward about 10 years I started at.
Chris Pace : dignity, health, so that was the first time, going from consulting to provider side and worked in strategy and planning for about four years and then out of nowhere.
Chris Pace : One of my mentors frank Austin came to me and said hey I think you'd be great at digital marketing, because it was helping the marketing team figure out targeting and audiences and stuff so I.
Chris Pace : turned him down and then he came back again and said I was still the best candidate so long story short, that was my entrance into marketing so.
Chris Pace : back into healthcare and then back into marketing and then here, I am, seven years later, leading the charge for one of the.
Chris Pace : biggest and fastest growing health systems in the United States and getting to do some pretty awesome stuff with digital front door and I couldn't be more lucky.
Chris Pace : I guess it's it's good to be lucky and it's lucky to be good, and if you're both and that's kind of where success happen so.
Chris Pace : that's my my story and personally I have five kids live in Gilbert Arizona wife and I just got married back in October, so we have a blended family and it's a you know it's a it's a fun life.
Chris Pace : So operations, by the way, on that.
Chris Pace : awesome Thank you so kind of going into banner for those that don't live in the southwest you may have never heard of us, but we are a very large.
Chris Pace : What they call a super regional meaning we cover six states we had about $10 billion in gross revenue in 2020, and that is.
Chris Pace : going to grow pretty significantly over the next few years, because we've added a couple components to our business as we've diversified.
Chris Pace : So you can see, I won't explain everything on this chart, but we have a lot of customers, we have a lot of partnerships.
Chris Pace : We have we have diversity which we celebrate in our staff, and then we have a broad array of services that we offer to our consumers across the six state region.
Chris Pace : Including the traditional hospital business, which is kind of what banner had been known for but over time we've started adding.
Chris Pace : More retail type opportunities like urgent care of we're one of the largest in the country now with 50 urgent cares and about 700,000 visits a year to that.
Chris Pace : That service, we also have imaging we just launched sleep centers and then the newest thing which is going to really drive revenue forward is.
Chris Pace : The insurance division, so we launched a medicare advantage products last year, and that is going to really take banner into a different category than the traditional health care hospital operator model because it allows us to help manage costs on the.
Chris Pace : The insurance delivery side and then on the on the provider side we're able to create some really nice products that we can offer to sorry my dog was drinking water right behind me so apologies if you're hearing that.
Chris Pace : But that is that is really a differentiator that that provides value to direct to employer or narrow network alignment with a partner physicians and then so on and so on, so it's it's a big company 55,000 employees i'm just lucky to be one of them.
Rebecca Clyde: I know that's fantastic I mean, but you can't you can't drive anywhere in the phoenix metro area without you know.
Rebecca Clyde: Driving by some kind of banner facility, where whether it's a surgical Center an urgent care hospital, I certainly had my kids at.
Rebecca Clyde: banner university and had received great care and regular we take my kids to to your facility, so thank you for for being such an incredible member of the Community, and for that expansion that you're.
Rebecca Clyde: Providing us so that we have a broader breadth of services that we can access, so thank you.
Rebecca Clyde: You know, I was going to ask you a little bit you know, one of the things that you really become known for in the industry, and that I see you, you know talking about.
Rebecca Clyde: A lot of the conferences that you go to another webinars you present at it's really about your leadership in the space of digital front door.
Rebecca Clyde: You talk to us a little bit about how you have how that journey has been for a banner certainly we talked about this in our last webinar together and maybe some of the things that have changed or arrived now with Kobe that really prompted you to embrace that further.
Chris Pace : Sure yeah so a digital front door for banner started about five years ago.
Chris Pace : The Board took a look at what was happening in the healthcare industry and with our competition and saw that banner was significantly behind.
Chris Pace : The competitors that we serve that we compete against naturally in our geographic area, but then also from a national level, we were we were pretty significantly behind, and so the the.
Chris Pace : The decision was made in 2017 to fund an effort around reducing friction, so the first step was create a new mission statement that was that was actually.
Chris Pace : The smartest move that I think banner could make because it align the entire organization to one North star, which is making healthcare easier so life can be better, so all the things we do ladder to that.
Chris Pace : and digital front door reducing friction that is truly a manifestation of that strategy so funding happen 2017 the project started in 18 and it was a three year run.
Chris Pace : And it's not one of those things where it's like you build it and you're done like a hospital but.
Chris Pace : We had to start, so the areas that we focused on where you know consulting our web experience, which is the area that I oversee.
Chris Pace : And we had 30 different websites, we had to consolidate that down to one because you know, have an Amazon has one starbucks has one like you don't need multiple websites to serve.
Chris Pace : A consistent product line that you offer to consumers, regardless of where you are so that was thing one thing too was discovering care and accessing care.
Chris Pace : So find a doctor, being a key component to that, but then also like online scheduling with your physician or online check in with urgent care or er.
Chris Pace : We needed to develop that and then also on the fulfillment side.
Chris Pace : We had a very fragmented call Center experience and we we feel 10s of millions of phone calls a year so whether it's hospital operators or food ordering in patient rooms to scheduling with the doctor to you know general customer service we needed a very tight.
Chris Pace : consolidated effort and the way to get there is, you need strong plumbing you need a.
Chris Pace : CRM so you know who the customer is so we had to implement that so that our agents could see who who we were talking to, and not only that, but.
Chris Pace : walk through the the journey that those consumers have had so that we don't waste time on the phone because the phone is the most expensive customer engagement channel of everything we operate and.
Chris Pace : So those are kind of the three big pillars there's a bunch of other stuff that happened to but 2020 was the end of the cycle for that project we're now shifting into.
Chris Pace : A new phase, which is more around digital consumer and building up applications and enhancing the experience, so that these sort of foundational pieces that we've built have an overlay that continue to make healthcare easier for our consumers, and so you asked about code so.
Chris Pace : You know this thing happened in early 2020 I think we all remember where.
Chris Pace : You know, we had to shift gears pretty rapidly in the healthcare space and go from you know sort of the bread and butter services that we offer to stop we can't let anybody in the hospital that isn't here for a reason and we can't.
Chris Pace : continue to promote services that are going to collide with the onslaught of cases that are overwhelming our ears and our ice us most importantly because that's the tightest capacity constraint in a hospital, so the marketing team in March and April.
Chris Pace : had to pause all advertising and pivot to messaging about cove it, and at that time it was visitor restrictions it was how to get tested what code was things like that that were basic information and the way we.
Chris Pace : You know, we kind of lucked into this because we had already built the infrastructure and the scale to be able to do this on a dime and pivot into a messaging strategy that.
Chris Pace : was essentially using the same tools we use to communicate about selling the services we offer, but instead we're offering information.
Chris Pace : As a trusted resource in the Community to hopefully come the fears that people were having and help them make wise decisions as they were going through the early stage of the pandemic.
Chris Pace : And so you know leveraging our messaging platform through salesforce leveraging our website for site core and being able to use.
Chris Pace : That platform to scale information imagine if we had had the 30 websites that were hard coded on Ms 2002 or whatever before.
Chris Pace : We wouldn't have been able to message to consumers effectively would have taken it sprint points out the wazoo to get there.
Chris Pace : Now we've got it where you know I mean most companies are like well why is this a big deal in 2020 you should have already had this well healthcare is a little bit behind, at times, so we had to.
Chris Pace : You know, we had the opportunity in the luxury to leverage a platform that we'd already built that was scalable and be able to get out to consumer so.
Chris Pace : that's kind of the Kobe early story and there's a lot more to go through, but I have been talking a lot so i'll let you go to your next question.
Rebecca Clyde: Now that's great Thank you and actually talking about questions to all of our participants I do want to make sure we take time to answer your questions as well.
Rebecca Clyde: So please add them to the queue we we reserve time at the end, to make sure to cover those because I know there's a lot going on right now and we want to make sure we can hear from Chris on all of these new changing headlines.
Rebecca Clyde: that are emerging every single day, so you know, one of the things Chris that I feel like banner did very well was.
Rebecca Clyde: embracing cross channel communication can you talk a little bit about that and also this feedback loop that you created within your.
Rebecca Clyde: systems so that you can constantly be in touch with where your consumer sentiment is and and respond appropriately and actually even be more proactive about.
Chris Pace : yeah so one of the I guess.
Chris Pace : wisest decisions that our team, and this was truly like my boss Alex morehouse who's just a star if you don't know her find her on linkedin she's unbelievably talented and amazing and.
Chris Pace : You know, we came to this decision back in the summer of 2020 where you know internal comms is running one direction with you know.
Chris Pace : Information about masking or testing, or what have you and then we've got our campaigns and what was happening was you know, out of good intent.
Chris Pace : everybody's busy and trying to do the right thing, but we weren't synchronized in and how we were addressing consumers and and.
Chris Pace : So, the decision was made to come up with a group called cross channel communication or C three and it at the time was a weekly.
Chris Pace : Meeting on Fridays, where anyone that oversaw a communication channel, whether it was email Web.
Chris Pace : blogs social media internal comms and even some of our digital products that do have communication elements to consumers got together and we would listen first to.
Chris Pace : What our consumer sentiment was you know our health systems if you've ever encountered, one which most of us have.
Chris Pace : Your you're hit with surveys, a lot and there's a reason for that one is for government, you know, to make sure you actually get reimbursed for the care you offer.
Chris Pace : But number two is you know health systems, want to understand how that experience was so that we can improve it and, just like when you go to buy a car or get an oil change or.
Chris Pace : And you know even go to chilis you get a survey after you know your your meal so um what we've done is we've taken these surveys and we.
Chris Pace : We pull our audience every week we implemented something called safety tracker to see how people were feeling about how banner was doing how people felt in general.
Chris Pace : You know what would be the hesitancy on returning to care the hesitancy on getting a vaccine, etc, etc, we could go to our consumers on a regular basis and learn from them.
Chris Pace : And then we could distill from those facts what the the overwhelming themes were and then take that to you know scripting for our call Center or.
Chris Pace : You know, generating content on social media and yeah, this is the loop right here, so if we start from the top, we listen we listen to consumers, we take those ratings and reviews that we see online.
Chris Pace : And then also natural language which is kind of a new thing for us our call Center You know, as I mentioned, takes a lot of phone calls we implemented nlp.
Chris Pace : Lately sometime last year and the goal of it was really to make sure that we were servicing customers properly, but what we found was.
Chris Pace : As themes sprung up in surveys, we could go back to the recorded footage and look for.
Chris Pace : Those themes inside the calls and as those themes came up, then you know we leverage salesforce which you know the agents have in front of them and that's where the script is and.
Chris Pace : They can respond to consumers pretty easily and pretty turnkey in near time I wouldn't say it's real time but it's close and and be able to respond so we take action on what we hear.
Chris Pace : And we can also then take that information and bring it to the operational side of the House so hospital CEOs division Presidents etc say hey you know we're hearing that.
Chris Pace : You know, right now, the visitor restriction policies, a little confusing or you know proxy I remember that being a thing you know with 14 and up in Arizona, you know there's a proxy form that.
Chris Pace : needs to be filled out but that wasn't really clear on the websites that we created content around it and gave agents scripting so that they could explain it in a more.
Chris Pace : easy to understand language that wasn't like legally, these are the terms that you skip over when you download not apple APP or whatever and.
Chris Pace : and make it clear and concise and then take all of those communications and then deliver them to our tool, so, as I mentioned salesforce our website, you know we we actually in spring of 2020 created a Tele health platform, we had no telehealth capabilities.
Chris Pace : I shouldn't say none, we had fragmented Tele health opportunities, but nothing direct to consumer was all in the hospital or it was like a B2B like physician to physician type thing.
Chris Pace : We launched it direct to consumer because we knew, based on the survey data that you see at the top of your screen.
Chris Pace : People were hesitant to come in office, but they still needed to talk to their doctor so launch that on a dime and then learn from it.
Chris Pace : You know, we we converted those appointment to appointments over time, you know whether it was the Tele health first then urgent care, then er than you kind of back to sort of normal before the before the January.
Chris Pace : Spikes spike and coven and and then you know track it and see what's happening, are we converting those appointments or we generated.
Chris Pace : I think it was 100,000 vaccine appointments in January in February, using online booking urgent care visits I mentioned the 700,000 we do a year it.
Chris Pace : But of that 45% are booking online now, whereas two years ago is 20% so we're starting to see shifts and behavior that I think are going to stick.
Chris Pace : Over time, because people were forced into digital engagement and now they're like hey this actually is easier and better so i'm going to kind of stick with this.
Chris Pace : And then take all that information all those insights and feed them back through the loop, so this work great for coven it actually worked great for.
Chris Pace : Returning to care when we had to pivot again and get folks back in into seeing their doctor, because you know I i'm sure everybody saw the stories last year, where.
Chris Pace : People were having heart attacks at home because they're afraid to get coven by going to the hospitals, they didn't even call 911.
Chris Pace : You know, strokes were higher you know cancer visits went way down, so there was less chemotherapy and infusion therapy and so on and so on, so people were.
Chris Pace : You know, passing away because of fear and so we had to you know, like distill all that information and learn from it, so that when we did come back to care we created a safety seal and we leaned in heavy on the protocols that we're doing to.
Chris Pace : help keep our facility, safe and then listen to the customers to see, is it moving the needle because you know there's perception and there's reality and most people's perception is reality so.
Chris Pace : You know they took that information, and you know we continue to feed this through the loop until you know.
Chris Pace : And now, this is a foundational element of our strategy and marketing and communication is you know listen respond react, and you know rinse and repeat, and this is how we can scale in the future.
Rebecca Clyde: Fantastic and I love to see this rise in online bookings that you're experiencing and seeing the digital channel really take over.
Rebecca Clyde: You know, when I was talking last to Alex morehouse recently, she said, this really interesting thing, she said you everybody's been trained to call the doctor like somehow that's.
Rebecca Clyde: built into our societal I don't know programming and it's so nice to finally see people realize that calling is not necessarily always the best way that you there's these much faster, more efficient channels that we can use and you've done a great job making those very accessible.
Chris Pace : To that point.
Chris Pace : millennials in particular are the least likely to make phone calls, you know I think i've seen so many memes about you know.
Chris Pace : The the fear of the phone ringing or whatever you know they they're they're good at communicating but it's all sort of asynchronous.
Chris Pace : You know, either through Apps or text messaging or probably all the above and.
Chris Pace : So the idea of calling to somebody that was born in like 1990 is insane but people born in 1990 somehow are old enough to have families, I don't even know how I didn't sign up for that.
Chris Pace : That shift in the time continuum but.
Chris Pace : You know I mean people that are born in 1990 or 30 now and they're having kids and families and and they expect their digital natives so they expect to be able to do things online and for us to operate from.
Chris Pace : An environment that was sort of built for 2030 years ago when the Internet wasn't even a thing is is not paying attention to your customers and you know with this.
Chris Pace : millennials being the biggest segment of population after the baby boomers.
Chris Pace : You know, we have to address those care needs as well, so it's um it's been a fascinating sort of business pressure tests that we've experienced over the last 18 months and.
Chris Pace : i'm sure Harvard Business Review and there's going to be case studies and wipes White Papers that MBA students are gonna be analyzing for decades to come, come out of this.
Rebecca Clyde: Oh absolutely and it's funny you mentioned millennials gen Z is another one, even more so, so my daughter just turned 18.
Rebecca Clyde: And so I sent her off to set her first you know doctor's appointment, on her own so she could kind of start to experience what that feels like.
Rebecca Clyde: And she was freaking out because she's like mom they keep calling me why are they calling me stressing me out can't they just text me.
Rebecca Clyde: And it was funny to see how her they're leaving a voicemail, why are they leaving me voicemails.
Rebecca Clyde: So we really do have to prepare ourselves as providers to understand that this new emerging, a group of adults, I mean gen Z they're already graduated from college they're getting jobs they have health insurance they're going to start having babies soon.
Rebecca Clyde: They want to engage with their health care providers digitally 100% of the time.
Rebecca Clyde: And so it behooves us to really figure out the whole hipaa compliance thing make sure we're setting ourselves up like you just described, so that we can address this very important Community of an entire generation because they're going to want to engage with us in this way.
Rebecca Clyde: We have some really good questions coming in from the Channel so i'm actually going to pause here for a minute and grab one because I worry that.
Rebecca Clyde: We might not get to one one or two of these so here there's one here from matt who says yes, Chris spoke to Kobe impact in 2020 and all the pivots they had to make as they see how the delta variant impact.
Rebecca Clyde: The new doesn't very an impact creates for their disruption, what are some new pivots that you were considering are there other tools or messaging that might be shifting with the current situation as we head into fall and winter.
Chris Pace : that's a really yeah it's yeah it's a very good question, and thank you matt for asking.
Chris Pace : So you know when we when Rebecca and I sat down to plan this discussion.
Chris Pace : We were talking about returning to care, and you know coven being in the past and little did we know that, a few weeks later.
Chris Pace : You know we'd be right back in the thick of it and honestly right now we are at a point where like at least from a banner perspective we're.
Chris Pace : Around where we were last winter at the at the worst point as far as capacity so it's just it's it's getting you know the sequels to the movie aren't any better than the first version, so I think what we're what we're prepared to do at a very high level is continue to.
Chris Pace : beat the drum that the vaccine is the best way to get out of this pandemic and.
Chris Pace : Second, to that masking is very important and with Back to School sort of happening at the same time I don't think this is a happy accident that these two events happened at the same time, because the way viruses work is they kind of seek out the.
Chris Pace : The weakest in the in the herd, and so you know the vaccinated are one pool, and then the vaccinated master another pool, but then you have.
Chris Pace : unvaccinated and then those that can't be vaccinated whether it's immunocompromised or or children, and so you know.
Chris Pace : Having to address the parents that may not have stepped up and gotten vaccinated when they had the chance and have a factual discussion with them on our perspective is is kind of a lightning Rod, to be honest, so what we're having to do is.
Chris Pace : You know, really just hit home on what has worked for us in the past and continue to lean on the recommendations of the CDC.
Chris Pace : All the while you know, we still need to make sure that we're addressing the care needs of our.
Chris Pace : You know population that needs us, and so you know the good news is how hospitals were built to deal with infection mitigation from the beginning, I mean if you look.
Chris Pace : hundred plus years ago it was sterilization and then it was you know, reducing visitation and then it was you know.
Chris Pace : For some reason, they could still smoking operating rooms back in like the 20s and 30s so get off get that off the table, and then you know shifting ahead, you know, we now have these.
Chris Pace : You know negative pressure environments inside the hospital where if you're in in in the icu, for example, you know it's limited access but it's also.
Chris Pace : Reverse pressure so that, if there are infectious diseases in that environment each of those rooms is equipped to keep it in that room so.
Chris Pace : coven is an infectious disease respiratory disease, just like tuberculosis was just like rsv which we're having a spike of that now, at the same time as coven and the flu is also that so we've the health care system in general has already figured this out it's just a matter of.
Chris Pace : Having the staff to be able to support it that's the that's the challenge, and when you have this overwhelming onslaught of cases all at once, it just creates.
Chris Pace : capacity constraints so that's a you know from a marketing perspective I think it's just making sure that we're showing up in the Community that we're.
Chris Pace : Timely with messaging and that we are providing that assurance that when you do come visit us, it will be safe, and you know, the best thing you need to do to avoid coming to see us is mask up and get the shot.
Rebecca Clyde: Absolutely and it's so important to have real time dynamic communication tools at your fingertips, so you can be constantly updating your Community your.
Rebecca Clyde: You know stakeholders about all of these changes that are happening because every day, something new, is is having to get adjusted.
Rebecca Clyde: Have you talked a little bit about how.
Rebecca Clyde: banner is using nlp natural language, processing and so this is something that we're starting to hear a lot about in marketing, I mean certainly it's at the core of bako Ai that's what our technology is really all about.
Rebecca Clyde: But talk to the audience here today, a little bit more about the process of implementing nlp because I think that oftentimes people get a little overwhelmed they're like wow that's going to be hard.
Rebecca Clyde: I think I need to hire a bunch of PhDs or have a huge engineering staff to be able to support something like that, so they might shy away from those types of initiatives.
Rebecca Clyde: From from those perceptions, so I think it would be good for people to hear about your experiences banner and, more specifically, more on a granular level of how you're using it, and why it's helpful.
Chris Pace : yeah so I could speak to this again at a high level at a level, I can understand because i'm you know the nlp sits in the contact Center and there's a whole team that is really dedicated to.
Chris Pace : Making the call experience amazing and that's that's kind of their aim, and so our leader over there, Chris castellano.
Chris Pace : who just spoke to becker's review podcast if you subscribe to that I would highly recommend listening she's just unbelievable wealth of information, but um.
Chris Pace : nlp for us, you know it's it's a technology that you know is.
Chris Pace : it's a bit of a buzzword you know and and I think it's because of a lack of awareness of what it can do.
Chris Pace : And, and how it can fold into your strategy, so I think the first step in the process is really understanding the why, so why do you need it.
Chris Pace : What problem, are you trying to solve and that's really foundational to any strategy building is you know what problem, are you trying to solve.
Chris Pace : And if the problem you're trying to solve is improving engagement with customers if it's improving quality of your contact Center or your communications.
Chris Pace : Those are great use cases um but you know, honestly, the biggest lift is figuring the strategy out and then actually installing it into your system so that it becomes part of your.
Chris Pace : Your plumbing, so to speak, in inside of your your data hub, if you will, because you know there's a lot of tools that you can install that.
Chris Pace : claim to be able to solve every problem that you have, but if it's not synthesized with your operational structure of how you do things then it's going to be.
Chris Pace : Where they call shelf where whatever whatever the old term was where it just it's an old box of Microsoft.
Chris Pace : disks that sits on your shelf and you don't know why you have it anymore so and then but, as you get it implemented and get get that plumbing stitched and that's where you really need like a strong it.
Chris Pace : team, or you know, a partner that will help you through that process because that's the part that.
Chris Pace : needs the subject matter expertise, once you have it implemented, then it's a matter of enabling it to those that can actually take action with it.
Chris Pace : And that's something that banner has done really well with because what we've found out is not only can nlp solve the problems that we stated as goals in our strategy, but it was also.
Chris Pace : You know instrumental in our communication cross channel strategy, because you know as we hear things we can you know plummet into a query and goat go find conversations that.
Chris Pace : have used these terms or similar terms and just go get them and bring them back in and produce insights that we can actually take action with so that's really the the added value is, if you imagine.
Chris Pace : You know 10 years, five years ago, probably 10 years ago going in and listening to a sample of phone calls that you know may have been flagged by an agent that talked about some topic.
Chris Pace : You know the data noise that would be in that would be insurmountable but now you can sift through all the noise and just get to those insights and.
Chris Pace : and spend less time searching for it and spend more time fixing the problems or solving for these these solutions that you need to solve for so.
Chris Pace : To me that's the best benefit of nlp and and Ai technology is you know because it's all math equations essentially but you know, having.
Chris Pace : A a an algorithm already placed where you don't have to do that part you don't have to be a query designer and a coder to go get the stuff it, you know you can just focus on the things you're great at which is solving problems and improving customer experience.
Rebecca Clyde: I love that yes, we talk a lot about that actionable insights being the main value proposition.
Rebecca Clyde: And for us we're seeing you know you can solve problems, but then you can also identify opportunities.
Rebecca Clyde: And we've seen providers open up entire new lines of service, because they saw that there were inquiries about those types of services are those needs, and they said hey we're missing out on revenue because we're not providing this line of service.
Rebecca Clyde: And so they're incorporating into their whole strategic planning process as well.
Rebecca Clyde: yeah that's.
Chris Pace : that's one thing that i've heard Chris castellano say quite a bit is Tom you know, using these as growth tools and growth engines versus.
Chris Pace : you're just kind of servicing is is really a different value proposition and that's where you know you can start.
Chris Pace : Changing the discussion, you have with the powers that be that fund these efforts.
Chris Pace : and say you know we're not just looking for this cost that's going to be added to our our cost Center but instead look at it, as.
Chris Pace : What is the benefit rationalization whether it's savings on the on the top end or growth on the bottom and either way both roads lead to margin, so I think that's another way to really.
Chris Pace : look at it from your organization and have that uncomfortable conversation with finances, you ask for money to pay for this thing that is kind of hard to describe but, once you have it, you can't imagine a world without it.
Rebecca Clyde: Absolutely, and you bring up a good point the whole you know, defending this to finance and one of the things we've done is actually created a will Roi model around it, so you can even model out scenarios and show.
Rebecca Clyde: Based on your goals how this actually pays for itself, you know 10 2030 times over, even in the matter of you know 12 to 24 months.
Rebecca Clyde: So that's awesome at going on to our next question, because we have a couple in the Channel to I want to make sure we get to.
Rebecca Clyde: Something I really want the audience, to be able to hear from you on which is how all of these different initiatives you put in place of really move the needle.
Rebecca Clyde: I think banner has come a long way from where you were even five years ago, or three years ago, and how is this starting to show up in terms of results for you.
Chris Pace : yeah so um you know, one of the I guess other.
Chris Pace : Happy accidents or happy outcomes of the pandemic for banner has been, you know that, with this focus on synchronized communication and with this focus on leveraging our.
Chris Pace : sort we have a persona we call like the wise guide so every every way we present ourselves is designed to be.
Chris Pace : sort of the friend that's you know that you trust, but that also knows a lot about.
Chris Pace : The healthcare space and and not talk in a way that's sort of demeaning or demoralizing but in a way that's uplifting and and easy to connect with and that that strategy shows up in our advertising, as well as in printed and digital communications.
Chris Pace : So our website has seen.
Chris Pace : sort of hockey stick growth, I would say.
Chris Pace : You know, three years ago we were.
Chris Pace : You know, like showing up about how we should, in terms of our size relative size in the industry, you know we're like the 30th roughly.
Chris Pace : Most visited website, three years ago in the healthcare industry and that's about the size, we are, as far as number of beds or revenue or however you measure compared to some of the monoliths in the industry.
Chris Pace : And over the last three years, and particularly in the last year we've kind of shot up and so SEM rush, which is one of the you know big.
Chris Pace : sort of trackers of.
Chris Pace : things that are happening in Google and and and also how they connect to your web experience and we hit top 10 most visited health.
Chris Pace : system website out of 10,000 in the industry, and that was really kind of mind blowing because you know we've seen these huge numbers, like our blog readership is up like 600% and.
Chris Pace : are fine to doctors up 150% and we were you know converting 44% of those.
Chris Pace : Visits for urgent care using online check in so it's like we sell these like internal metrics that are exciting, but to see it mapped against peers was just kind of like whoa.
Chris Pace : And then the other thing that popped up and one of the found foundational principles of our web strategy was again because health making healthcare easier so life can be better, as our top line mission statement.
Chris Pace : One of the foundational pillars of our web experience was to reduce friction and reduce clicks to get to what you need whether it's booking an appointment paying a bill accessing or portal etc and.
Chris Pace : gartner which I think everybody knows they're well known consultancy that tracks kind of everything in business they're not just health care, and so the digital IQ index just started for the healthcare industry in 2020 and you know we were on the on the map, but certainly weren't.
Chris Pace : showing up in the upper deck style of the industry, but in the digital IQ index, which was released in March we ranked number seven.
Chris Pace : Easy most easy path to purchase so again going back to our pillar in our strategy of.
Chris Pace : You know it's not so much the eyeballs that we get to the website that's awesome and the fact that we're number 10 is great, but are we getting.
Chris Pace : sort of the horse to drink the water, you know we can buy traffic, we can get traffic pretty easily but.
Chris Pace : The real root of delivering to the business and also doing right by consumers is making it super easy so that they can get on with their life and.
Chris Pace : For us to show up number seven here was really like this is the biggest pride point I think I could have in terms of things to accomplish in.
Chris Pace : In the time of Bennett banner is to get on this list, and you look at some of these other names on this list, I mean, these are the who's who, and we are a who have the who's who so.
Chris Pace : Now I gotta shoot for top five next, but you know this is this was really like the the validation that was needed to kind of say hey what we what we invested in paid off and the team that it takes to do this it's I mean i'm just the one talking but I mean there's a lot of people that.
Chris Pace : were in the right place at the right time and synchronized on strategy to make this happen, and so that's that's how we got here so it's been it's been tremendous and you know exciting to see where we can go from here.
Rebecca Clyde: Well, huge congratulations for that that's definitely a career feather in your CAP, so to speak, and something in something you know Jen definitely to be very proud of.
Rebecca Clyde: So good job to you and the whole team, and I can actually attest to this myself just this weekend.
Rebecca Clyde: I had to go get my daughter's sports physical you know Back to School she's wanting to play sports, you have to fill out all this paperwork.
Rebecca Clyde: And sure I went on to the banner urgent care, you know literally a matter of clicks and I was in the line had the the you know virtual waiting room appointment scheduled at their local urgent care right by me.
Rebecca Clyde: It was super seamless I think I you know spent less than two minutes trying to book it online it's even that.
Rebecca Clyde: And it was a great experience and then, of course, going in it was really nice to they had all the forums already that I need in the staff was extremely helpful the doctor was fantastic so.
Rebecca Clyde: The entire experience was 100% positive, and it was only $25 which I think is also great so.
Rebecca Clyde: You guys are definitely doing a really good job with access in terms of making it easy to get care, you know great experience on site and then also very affordable I think i'm in terms of what your quality of service for the price for sure.
Chris Pace : Well, and what you described as honestly like I mean this is going back to marketing, you know 301 I remember taken us in like 9697 at asu go devils that I, you know it's the it's the four p's right its price promotion product and place, I think I.
Chris Pace : I didn't get an A in the class.
Chris Pace : But i'm hitting hitting those four at the same time, is really like what makes this easy honestly is you know if you have a great product and it's priced in a way that is accessible.
Chris Pace : And you know we have physical locations all over the place, as you described in the beginning, so you know access is easy, and then you know, promoting it is really just showing up where consumers are.
Chris Pace : Looking and so you know we you probably found us on Google search or you do because you're a friend of banner for a long.
Chris Pace : Time but for those that don't know you know urgent care near me, you know, our goal is to show up number one and make it.
Chris Pace : You know, it said zero click environment, I talked about a lot and conferences and webinars it's you know it's not so much driving traffic to the site it's about.
Chris Pace : Making as few stops as it takes to get to that conversion and you know we spend a lot of time and effort on that just to make it a stitch easier than others and.
Chris Pace : You know I think that's where competitive advantage comes in, because you know if you're if you're quicker faster easier to find you win because it's like ricky Bobby said if you're not first you're last so you know we better be first.
Rebecca Clyde: Absolutely that's a great quote I love that one as the congrats to you and the team, because I really have seen that evolution over time.
Rebecca Clyde: And we have a couple more questions in the Channel and I want to make sure we capture so there's one here about Tele health appointments and.
Rebecca Clyde: Brendan is asking you know telehealth really founded strider cove it from checkups to screening to the mental health and disadvantage is very clear, but i'm curious what we've missed over the last year because of telehealth appointments versus in person.
Chris Pace : yeah so interesting tidbit about Tele health, I think, and I could have the numbers wrong but weren't post fact world now anyway, it seems on the Internet so.
Chris Pace : Pre pandemic roughly 20% of consumers were interested in tele health not, meaning that it used it before but we're just interested in it and may use it in the future.
Chris Pace : Fast forward coven hits and you know offices for physician offices are closing and so we had to.
Chris Pace : launch that platform that I mentioned, and what we've seen over time is I think it's something like 60% of people have used Tele health now so we went from 20% maybe to 60% have absolutely used it so.
Chris Pace : What what did we miss, I would say, you know there's certain areas where Tele health is fantastic and Rebecca and I were talking about this in our pre meeting on this, but it's you know, like going over lab results or you know there's certain things that can be treated like.
Chris Pace : You know, and I like do I pink guy or not, you know why spend an hour and a half of your life.
Chris Pace : going to and from a doctor's appointment, when you probably know, you have it, and someone can look at a camera and say yeah you probably have it, and then go ahead and prescribe you with a antibiotic to deal with it.
Chris Pace : The those are like the winds, I would say where we've maybe had some challenges is kind of in those areas I mentioned earlier, where you know people are having like.
Chris Pace : Events like heart attack stroke, you know, diabetes, you know there's areas where telehealth can come in and tell I hope isn't just video visit I should clarify telehealth is a.
Chris Pace : Connected experience that you can have from doctor to anywhere else, whether it's in another doctor's office or at your home or with a remote monitor like you know, a diabetes.
Chris Pace : tracker that you wear on your on your arm that's connected to a smartphone all that Tele health until now it's been around for 30 plus years.
Chris Pace : But video visits is really the new manifestation of Tele health and so there's just certain things in.
Chris Pace : chronic condition management that require in person, and so I think what we what we will see going forward is.
Chris Pace : Tele health will always have a space in your healthcare journey and it'll always be an option for you, but the hybrid approach of in person and online or connected is going to be I think how most consumers are going to prefer using.
Chris Pace : Their healthcare services in general, and you know I think for the younger audience, you know the millennials and younger.
Chris Pace : I feel like you know if there's a way to do this without video and just you know.
Chris Pace : chat with your doctor, which you know I i'm a member of one medical for my primary care, and I could text my doctor at any time as part of my membership and sometimes that's all I need so just having.
Chris Pace : Communication that aligns with consumer wants versus sort of this mandate of if you have this, you must be seen in this setting.
Chris Pace : that's going to be where you know the the winners and losers are sorted define because you'd have to adapt to consumer trends and behavior and figure out a way to match up with it from an operational perspective.
Rebecca Clyde: yeah I agree, I think that hybrid approach is really where we're going to go you'll have to get some physical examination still there, certain procedures that require you to be physically present but.
Rebecca Clyde: I have had such rich conversations with my doctors over the last year, this last year through telehealth because we have more time together.
Rebecca Clyde: You know all of that what I call rigmarole of having to drive and park and check in and wait and then have them take your weight when you're just going to talk to the doctor.
Rebecca Clyde: You can avoid all of that, and just have a 15 minute session over the phone and so i'm actually getting more face time with the position.
Rebecca Clyde: Through telehealth than I did before in you know, in a 15 minute session and telehealth session that I did with the two hour block of time that I had to take out of my day just to get that.
Chris Pace : And for a physician like from a productivity standpoint, they can see three to four patients and our.
Chris Pace : And you know if most of the experience is digital and forms are filled out digitally and documentation is done digitally.
Chris Pace : Because of nlp you could take that video session and extract the notes from it and place it into the patient's record well guess what doctors spend way too much time doing administrative tasks tasks and.
Chris Pace : Too little time with patient engagement, so if you can somehow flip it, you know you're going to have satisfied physicians because right now, like burnout is just.
Chris Pace : You know it's it's that's another pandemic that's happening below the surface is you know clinical burnout and you know if they're.
Chris Pace : stretched too thin and having to do too much and spend less time with what it is they actually are trained to do, which is you know treat and see patients, then.
Chris Pace : You know that's that's a problem on its own, so if this can, if technology can help improve the physician experience to and the clinical experience.
Chris Pace : You know that will yield better outcomes for patients ultimately.
Rebecca Clyde: Absolutely, we need, we need the clinical staff with the doctors and nurses work.
Rebecca Clyde: yeah absolutely.
Rebecca Clyde: More than ever.
Rebecca Clyde: there's another question here from William he's saying, Chris do you think there needs to be some government or policy provisions that are less restrictive.
Rebecca Clyde: In order to facilitate such as it, but in order to really facilitate more efficiency between patients their medical records and digital front door technologies for healthcare workers.
Chris Pace : yeah I think it's it's more of education than anything um you know.
Chris Pace : we've been transmitting secure files as a, you know as a society for a long time, I mean there's always going to be.
Chris Pace : risk, but you know health systems finance industry, and you know insurance have all kind of built as.
Chris Pace : best they can, a guarded you know sort of walled garden around private data that they can, and you know, most of the breaches you read about her you know crappy Apps you looked on your phone is where it's coming from so.
Chris Pace : You know if I think it's going to be require a partnership and again i'm not a government relations expert or anything, so this is just my own like probably slightly informed opinion.
Chris Pace : But I think you know the the government and the health systems and the insurance providers.
Chris Pace : Somehow need to come together to speak, a common language so that.
Chris Pace : Some of the obstacles that sit between patient and physician can be removed, and I think technology will be the solve for it, and I think that there is some kid sitting in.
Chris Pace : You know, watching a tick tock right now that's probably going to figure this out in our lifetime, and you know it's just a matter of getting.
Chris Pace : Politics out of the way and really just trying to figure out how to solve problems so i'm optimistic that you know from a from where I sit, you know I can do only do so much, but I think if we all kind of look at our leaders in our communities and say you know hey.
Chris Pace : I want to align with folks that are looking to help improve that experience, because if there's less friction and less obstacles, the cost is going to go down, and we know that health care costs are pretty high, and you know.
Chris Pace : unreasonable and you know everything we can do to reduce the noise and reduce the obstacles is going to reduce the cost ultimately.
Rebecca Clyde: yeah that's a really good point you know we stress that we stress so much about hipaa within our technology platform.
Rebecca Clyde: yeah and I know you do from a marketing perspective in terms of patient data and making sure all your tools that you're using on your skin your tech stack are hipaa compliant.
Rebecca Clyde: than the other day, you know school sends me all these paper forms with like oh write down your kids allergies medications you know it has the kids birthday on it.
Rebecca Clyde: you send these forms to school in their backpack which is highly not hipaa compliant and then the note, you get a note back from the nurse, we never got your paper you're like where did the paper.
Rebecca Clyde: Money around somewhere, I have this vision of like this children this parking lot or playground at school with all these medical boards just flying in the wind.
Yes.
Chris Pace : Russia a CAFE in Russia is sitting with amount of papers with fig be a cigarette fingerprints all over him and crumpled up paper just sitting there entering them into the kremlin's database.
Rebecca Clyde: I know i'm like where did these forms go I feel about three times they never make that way to the teacher or the nurse somehow so yeah, we have to figure out a better way to get our kids medical information to the nurse versus these up paper forms that are definitely not getting.
Rebecca Clyde: The transmission is not encrypted, nor is it the car.
Chris Pace : No most reliable sources your five year old, I would say.
Rebecca Clyde: elementary school children are not an advocate and efficient method of data transportation yes for.
Rebecca Clyde: Okay, so one last question before we wrap up you know, the thing I dread most in calling the hospital doctor's office is getting my basic questions answered like do they take my insurance and having to wait a long time, for that is there an easier way to do this.
Chris Pace : that's, the aim of every healthcare marketer I would say, is to try and make access to information easy, and you know, given the fact that you have so many different.
Chris Pace : folks involved in your healthcare journey your insurance being one, and then you know the provider, and if that provider isn't employed by a health system, and you have to get referred to an employed provider at a health system, it just it's a mess.
Chris Pace : So um.
Chris Pace : I would say that there are a few tools that that banner uses that can help.
Chris Pace : But if if the question is coming from outside of market, I would say, you know always start with your insurance provider and go out because they're going to have the best data on who accepts the product they offer.
Chris Pace : The health systems and usually like a find a Doc appliance isn't connected to.
Chris Pace : Insurance verification and so that's probably where a lot of frustration comes from is if you're using a even like a health grades or Doc Doc or.
Chris Pace : One of these like public repositories of Dr listings it's as soon as it gets published it's dated so.
Chris Pace : start with your insurance company unfortunately and that's never good experience, but I think that's probably your best step forward and then.
Chris Pace : If you are a banner customer, you can contact either a nurse hotline or our contact Center and they can guide you, because if you've been a customer with us, we know you so that's the good news.
Rebecca Clyde: yeah and I saw you have this banner at net product which probably tightly connects that that whole experience.
Rebecca Clyde: Well, Chris we're out of time I are the hour went by so fast with you always will have to do a part three here in six months.
Rebecca Clyde: So thank you for for joining us and for everybody who's on the line with us today, I did want to take a moment to do a quick plug for our next webinar that's coming up.
Rebecca Clyde: conversational websites high with it, how they will change the game it's going to be on August 18 at 11am Pacific.
Rebecca Clyde: And we're going to be showing some demos, of how the next wave of websites.
Rebecca Clyde: being designed really with the conversational component at the central as the central feature.
Rebecca Clyde: so that people can just come to your website ask their question have a natural conversation whether it's your speech or through text.
Rebecca Clyde: And you know we were kind of going to be moving away from that whole experience and pointing and clicking that we've become so familiar with over the last few years, so will be demonstrating some examples there and joined by.
Rebecca Clyde: Some really great experts in the space so so we'd love to have you there if you joined the webinar today.
Rebecca Clyde: And thanks again Chris so much for this hour well spent together, I certainly enjoyed the time and i'm sure that our guests into is there anything else that you want to share before we close parting words for the audience here today.
Chris Pace : This is my opinion, not the opinion of my employer, although i'm sure they share it but get vaccinated mask up do the right thing, help your friends family and those that can.
Chris Pace : That is the best way to get out of this mess, so thank you for doing right by others and just be kind of people that's that's my best advice.
Rebecca Clyde: awesome Thank you so much, Chris good seeing you again this morning and have a great weekend in the mountains take care.
Rebecca Clyde: Everybody all right.