Shephard Center, located in Atlanta, Georgia, is a private, not-for-profit hospital specializing in medical treatment, research and rehabilitation for people with spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, spine and chronic pain, and other neuromuscular conditions.
Although their team of expert clinicians provide individualized patient recovery from life-changing injury or stroke or other neuromuscular condition, Shepherd Center was stuck in the #9 ranking placement on the U.S. News & World Report “Best Hospitals” Rankings.
The executive leadership contracted Gabrielle DeTora at DeTora Consulting to conduct a thorough analysis of why Shepherd Center had not been ranked in the past and develop a strategy to be ranked on this prestigious list moving forward.
Shepherd Center’s goals are two-fold: 1) advance past the #9 position on this prestigious list and 2) understand how competing hospitals are scoring and where Shepherd Center can command an edge in the rankings against those competitors. In support of these goals, DeTora Consulting will conduct a methodical process of research and data evaluation to:
- Uncover quality, documentation, and reputation shortcomings, if any,
- Determine critical success factors and tactical steps for improvement,
- Conduct a review and evaluation of 2017-18 efforts to engage with physiatrists and related professional societies, including AAPM&R, ACRM, AAP and AMRPA
- Prioritize sub-service initiatives in messaging to maximize chances for ranking success, focusing on Shepherd Center as a partner, rather than a competitor of other rehabilitation facilities and PM&R practices
- Develop a creative brief with talking points on key topics of valued peer-to-peer education, positioning Shepherd Center as a national leader in the field
- Outline a timeline for improvement initiative management, and
- Develop an information dashboard to track results.
Based on past performance measures and hospital benchmarks, thresholds for success will be outlined along with forecasts on how the improvements could affect future rankings. Looking specifically at Shepherd Center’s scoring, there is only one area for improvement – reputation.
The U.S. News & World Report reputation voting takes place exclusively on the Doximity site. DeTora Consulting will make recommendations on an integrated non-Doximity Plan including elements including digital communications, social media, PR, conferences, direct emails promoting research articles, clinical achievements, testimonials, etc., and any other integrated tactics that would benefit Shepherd Center the most.
DeTora Consulting will also be conducting a deep dive into the Doximity physician dataset to retrieve and correlate/cross reference the Shepherd Center faculty, residents, and alumni lists (if applicable) with the Doximity list of physicians. This will allow DeTora Consulting to present a full report of communications to be targeted through the Doximity channel. DeTora Consulting will also present all other integrated communications channels. The result will be a multifaceted effect on the rankings – the bottom-line purpose of this plan.
Shepherd Center is known for its treatment of a wide range of conditions that demand advanced rehabilitation and medical management – especially spinal cord injuries, brain injuries, pulmonary conditions and stroke. Hospital physicians and staff are highly rated by patients for the depth of their clinical excellence, compassion and outstanding outcomes achieved as a team.
Gabrielle DeTora and DeTora Consulting are honored to be able to take on this important project.