Some hospitals trying long-distance marketing

CINCINNATI - Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center hopestelevision, radio and billboard advertisements can bring new patientsfrom hundreds of miles away in West Virginia and Indiana.

The hospital is among a small number that have expanded marketingcampaigns in recent years to attract patients for specialty medicalservices and donors for construction projects.

Johns Hopkins Medicine, the umbrella group for the Baltimoreresearch and teaching hospital complex, is using television andmagazine ads to appeal to people in the New York City area tocontribute to a campaign to try to raise $275 million for newbuildings.

These ads could cause people to ask their doctor for a referral tothe featured hospital or prompt them to donate if they think it couldhelp support medical advances, hospital industry officials said.

"Very few people will listen to an ad to choose their hospital.What it will cause them to do is have a conversation with theirdoctor," said Rick Wade, senior vice president of the AmericanHospital Association.

"This will remind those people and those communities that thisresource is there."

Hospitals have limited budgets for advertising and generallyadvertise in other areas only if they offer specialized services notavailable in those markets, Wade said.

"If you have a certain specialty that you do very well, it's verylogical," said David Dempsey, an analyst who follows the health-careindustry for Avondale Partners LLC in Nashville, Tenn.

Cincinnati Children's Hospital advertisements, which started lastfall in Charleston, W.Va., and Evansville and Fort Wayne, Ind., werethe first outside its immediate market.

The hospital wants parents in those areas to know it can help iftheir children need specialized care, such as windpipe reconstructionor certain cancer treatments, said Phyllis Goodman, the hospital'svice president for marketing and communications.

"I prefer to think of it in terms of providing care to childrenwho need it, who don't have access to it in their hometown," shesaid.

Goodman declined to say what the hospital is spending on the adsor how long they will continue. It is too soon to say whether it isbringing in new patients, she said.

Childrens Hospital Boston ran television and magazine ads inBuffalo and Rochester, N.Y., in 2003 and 2004, said Michelle Davis,the hospital's vice president of public affairs and marketing.

The hospital also has paid for Internet ads and tried to make itsWeb site more appealing to parents looking for specialized servicesfor their children, Davis said.