Today we’re exploring the dynamic intersection of healthcare, privacy, and patient experience with Tracey Schroeder, Chief Communications & External Affairs Officer at Inova Health System. Tracey brings a unique perspective from her transition from the hospitality industry with a role as Vice President and Global Head of Consumer PR at Marriott International to healthcare with her current role at Inova.
Tracey Schroeder is Chief Communications and External Affairs Officer at Inova Health System. Tracey leads communications, marketing, physician relations and government affairs for Inova Health System, inclusive of brand development, internal communications, physician communications, media relations, social media, and digital strategy.
Tracey leads a team of 70 individuals supporting Inova, a $6 billion health system in Northern Virginia. Inova sees over two million unique patients a year across five hospitals and 200 outpatient sites.
Prior to joining Inova in 2021, Tracey served as Vice President, Global Consumer Public Relations at Marriott International leading public relations for Marriott’s 30 brands and consumer-facing initiatives across customer experience, digital, experiential, and global marketing partnerships.
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Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom:
Today we’re exploring patient experience and privacy in healthcare with Tracey Schroeder, Chief Communications and External Affairs Officer at Inova Health, Northern Virginia’s leading nonprofit healthcare provider. Tracey brings a unique perspective from her transition from the hospitality industry with a role as Vice President and Global Head of Consumer PR at Marriott International to healthcare with her current role at Inova. Tracey, welcome to the show.
Tracey Schroeder: Thank you so much for having me. I’m looking forward to our discussion.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, looking forward to this. Why don’t we get started with you giving a little background on yourself and you know, talk a little bit about your journey from hospitality to healthcare.
Tracey Schroeder: Yes, thanks. Well, so I came into healthcare just about four years ago. And at the time, as I was sort of you know, after 20 plus years of sort of working in corporate America, I was considering my next move and I felt really compelled to work in an industry that had made a meaningful impact. And so I was talking with Inova and, you know, not only was the job really attractive, but the culture of this organization felt really authentic and that the mission that everyone was sort of centered on And even today, four years in, I would say it still is such a centering part of our culture and the work that we do every day. And then it was just the opportunity to impact lives in a positive way that really attracted me to this role and this industry. And our CEO, even as recently as in the last week, the CrowdStrike incident and so forth. You know, he makes a point of saying like every single person, no matter if they’re at the bedside or behind the desk, impacts our delivery of health care. And so you’re part of the patient experience. You’re part of delivering health care. And that really resonated with me that, you know, we all have a role to play and that all working together is really important to make sure that we can deliver the best care possible. So, you know, beyond sort of that, There are so many similarities between health care and hospitality. Obviously, at their core, both are about taking care of people. But health care does it when people are at their most vulnerable. Hospitality in some ways seeks to take care of them when they’re working, traveling, vacation. They’re living their life. They’re spending time with family, friends, colleagues. Both are important. Both have a role to play. and both have the opportunity to impact well-being in a positive way. And, you know, in both instances, really gratifying spaces to work in.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah. And I love that, how you framed the CEO talking about everyone’s role, really impacting that patient experience. I think that’s such a powerful thing. when leaders emphasize that. I know there’s that like classic story of like the janitor at NASA that, you know, described his job as, you know, helping people, you know, helping put people on the moon and stuff like that. I think it, you know, it goes, it goes all ways, right? It’s everybody’s, everybody has some kind of line of sight to that, that end customer. So that’s, I think that’s really powerful.
Tracey Schroeder: That’s a, it’s a hundred percent true. We had an incident just that, that, that would have underscored that just recently. You know, where we even say like, you know, someone who, you know, like the janitor or the security guard that, you know, might be working in one of our emergency departments, you know, they’re observing patients. They may see when a patient is in distress. And so, you know, they have their primary job to do, but they have a real opportunity to impact patient care as well.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s dive in here. We’re going to talk about a few things today. I wanted to start with this idea and this concept of balancing patient experience with privacy. So lots of changes for those in the healthcare industry. very familiar with things like HIPAA and other things, those outside of the industry. Certainly, there’s a lot of talk about consumer data privacy and other things in all industries, but healthcare in particular, definitely lots of fast-moving changes. And as I mentioned, some recent updates to HIPAA and other privacy regulations. you know, from your from your perspective, how should a healthcare system not only ensure compliance, I mean, compliance, obviously, is mandatory. But how do you balance this compliance with privacy while still creating a great patient experience, which takes knowing a lot about your patients? So you know, how, you know, how do you balance the two?
Tracey Schroeder: Yes, it’s great. It’s a great question. And I mean, you kind of hit the nail on the head, like information data is key to providing a quality healthcare experience. And at its core, HIPAA is about protecting that patient data to ensure it’s shared only with the people who need it to deliver that healthcare. And if we merge the two, the sharing and the protection of that information, that’s part of our calculus in every single patient interaction. So if that, you know, HIPAA and other privacy regulations, if that’s our baseline, then there are many things that we can do to positively affect patient experience and use that vast, like, amount of information at our disposal. So when it comes to data, you know, we want people, we want our patients to be able to access their patient portal, for example. They can review their medical history. They can make appointments. They can get a prescription refill, pay a bill. You know, we need that information, but they need that information, too, so they can be their best advocate. And, you know, it allows them to really take control and be proactive when it comes to managing their health. For us, you know, it also means we can deliver a more individualized patient experience. So, for example, we can remind them when they have an appointment coming up or it’s time for their annual flu shot. And again, the more that we can deliver that one-to-one level care, that personalization, the more seamless we can make their overall experience.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. And I mean, this is, as you’ve said already, and as many know firsthand, this can be very critical things that need to be communicated. And so, yeah, it’s that balance of just making sure that people have that access and yet protecting what needs to be protected. And, you know, part of that, too, is there certainly there have been a lot of of data breaches and all those kinds of things in various industries. You know, they certainly make headlines and stuff. And so I think consumers are a bit let’s say jaded about some of this stuff. And so, you know, with your background in, you know, from a communications perspective, it’s like you, a brand needs to reassure their customers that they are, you know, respecting and are they’re respecting privacy and are good stewards of their customers data or their patients data. But there also has to be some realism in all of this. What do you see as the balance between talking about respecting privacy and all of this and the actions? So consumers are not only confident, but it feels authentic to that end consumer.
Tracey Schroeder: Yeah. And so I was thinking a lot about this. And what’s great about health care is that our patients trust us with their most the most intimate information about themselves, about their bodies. And by doing so, that allows us to deliver the best health care we can. So we don’t take that trust lightly. But then the other side of that is it’s a highly regulated industry, as you mentioned. So there’s already an understanding of the privacy that comes with that. Every patient’s aware of our privacy practices. We have notices at our clinics and our hospitals. We have notices on our websites. So having said that, I actually don’t feel an imperative to talk about privacy very often because I think it’s already a consumer expectation when it comes to health care. and it’s ingrained in every consumer and every team member. And it should be, to be truthful. So once that baseline is established, it, in a lot of ways, frees me up to focus more on the patient experience and focus on talking and communicating what consumers can expect around that. That’s where we can define our brand, drive preference, and make sure our patients are continuing to come to us for care. We do, like I said, we take, we don’t take that trust lightly. And because it’s such a regulated industry, I think it’s well known that, you know, that privacy is a huge component of what we do. And so it kind of gives me permission to not have to talk about it.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Well, and that kind of leads to the next topic I wanted to talk about, which is just, you have a background in in a few industries. So you know, you come from directly from hospitality, where you’re at Marriott International, now in the healthcare industry, I wanted to talk a little bit about similarities as well as differences between the two. So, you know, maybe we could start with with that or, you know, what do you see as some of the key differences between these two industries?
Tracey Schroeder: Yeah, that’s that’s great. So well, so to start with similarities in both industries, you know, I think you can say at a very high level that the primary focus is on providing exceptional service, a defined customer experience, if you will. I think where healthcare is increasingly getting more savvy and taking cues from hospitality and other consumer-focused industries is that the patient experience is not just when you’re in our building. It’s not just when you’re receiving our care. I think healthcare was sort of a little bit slower to realize that and to recognize that the patient experience is when you’re navigating our website, you’re making an appointment, It’s the wayfinding and the ease at which you can find the place you need to go for your appointment. It’s how easy do we make it for you to pay your bill or ask a follow-up question to your provider? All of those things are part of the patient experience. And increasingly, I’m seeing health care is focusing on that more and more, which they should be, which is the right thing to do. There’s an appreciation that consumer expectations have changed. And if health care doesn’t I mean, doesn’t kind of catch up to that and start, you know, considering that as well and making that, you know, making changes based on that, you know, you’ll lose relevance and certainly lose customer loyalty. And so, you know, if our objective is to, you know, maintain both of those things, then we have to adopt that consumer thinking as we’ve seen happen in so many other industries.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. I know I often talk about this when I’m talking about like B2B marketing is It’s kind of been a little behind the curve in some ways, but I think recently, you know, we’re all B2B customers or consumers in their, you know, real lives outside of work and stuff. And I feel similar enough. various industries, but you know, speaking specifically about healthcare, you know, healthcare patients are consumers in the rest of their lives when they’re not dealing with with healthcare issues, or, or things like that. And so there’s this expectation to, to your point, that they’re going to have the same level of service and same customer experience, whatever they’re doing, where whatever the the challenge they’re, they’re trying to solve. Do you think that I mean, it sounds like there’s sort of an implicit mandate, so to speak, in healthcare, whether it’s to catch up or keep up. Do you think that healthcare is keeping up or catching up, or does it still have a little ways to go compared to some other industries like hospitality or others?
Tracey Schroeder: I mean, I think both. So I think in many cases, health care is getting caught up. They are, you know, at Inova specifically, I know we have a lot of initiatives that are putting, you know, putting the customer at the center focused on really, you know, enabling greater access, delivering seamless care, reducing points of friction, all things that we were talking about in consumer industries, you know, five and 10 years ago. And so You know, I think health care was behind. I think there’s a lot of effort to get caught up. And I also think it’s not changing. You know, the consumer industry industries are not sort of resting on their laurels, like they’re not stopping where they’re at. And so, you know, in some ways, I think it’s about figuring out What innovation is right for your company, your industry? What’s going to help you make the most significant impact on your patient experience? or your customer experience and investing in those areas, because you can’t do everything at once. And so you really have to consider what is going to have the biggest payoff. And for us, it’s not just, you know, it’s about our customers. It’s also about our team members. You know, how can we be innovating to ensure that our team members can have the best experience in delivering that care as well? And so, you know, we sort of look at it from both sides of that coin, and that’s how we decide sort of, you know, what we want to prioritize and where we want to spend our time.
Greg Kihlstrom: How has your experience in hospitality or other industries as well influenced how you think about health care?
Tracey Schroeder: So in hospitality, we focused a lot on customer loyalty. That was a big initiative. I was part of the team that launched Marriott Bonvoy. And so with that, it was understanding what motivates or necessitates a need for someone to travel and intercepting that at key moments in order to drive consideration, preference, and ultimately more stays. We looked to, you know, part of that loyalty proposition was you know, rewarding that behavior as well. And so loyalty members get benefits. So things like free Wi-Fi at a basic level and then more attractive benefits, the more often they stay, the more points they have, the deeper their loyalty is. So there was a real movement, you know, five or so years ago to towards experience platforms where we could really deliver these once in a lifetime experiences to loyalty members and really, you know, reward that loyalty. We often talked about that business traveler, that road warrior, who might spend 200 nights a year on the road staying at a mid-level hotel. Well, then we wanted to make sure that they had the option to cash in those points to take a vacation at a luxury property if that was what interested them. And so really trying to make sure those benefits could be really specific and customized to the loyalty member, to the traveler and sort of what they would find valuable in a particular moment. That is not something we can duplicate in health care exactly, but I think we can take some key learnings from that. So, for example, how we retain and leverage customer preferences. Our clinicians really try to understand what matters most to a patient so they can help address or remove any obstacles that might be standing in the way of the patient being able to focus fully on their care. And so if there’s an opportunity for us to take away a point of stress so that that patient can focus fully on getting better, we want to do that. And that is something that, you know, can drive loyalty. Another option, or excuse me, another learning is giving them options. A traveler might prefer, like I was saying before, that mid-tier hotel for business, but they want to splurge on something like an experience or a luxury property when they’re with their friends and family. and they should get that choice. And in healthcare, I think we need to look at what choices can be meaningful to our customers, our patients, and whether that be appointment times, like happening in the evenings or the weekends, or communication via a chat instead of having to pick up the phone. And so, high level, yes, we can sort of adopt learnings from the loyalty value proposition, even if it’s not sort of a one-to-one comparison. The really awesome thing in health care is at the end of the day, we’re improving someone’s life. We’re helping them get back on their feet, get back to living, get back to feeling good. And what we find is our patients are incredibly grateful. And that is what drives loyalty. It isn’t transactional in health care. In fact, it can be quite transformational.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m speaking as a titanium Bonvoy member, I do thank you for, for the perks that you mentioned, but, but I’m totally, totally, totally agree with you. And, you know, so not not all leaders have the, you know, I think I think it’s an advantage and a benefit to have diversity and experience and industry experience and stuff like that. Not all leaders necessarily have that, but they can still leverage insights and strategies from other industries. How do you suggest they do that? You know, again, somebody in healthcare, you know, 10, 20, 30 years, they certainly know an industry deeply, but how would you recommend that other leaders kind of look to other industries and take the right lessons?
Tracey Schroeder: Yeah, I think every marketer in particular looks around to see what’s happening and every professional to see what’s happening that might be innovative in their own industry, but also what other verticals have effectively solved an issue or situation that they may be dealing with. And taking inspiration from that and adopting it to your own situation, I think is a really effective and at times can be efficient way to solve a problem or address something. One thing I love about health care that was sort of unique and not something I experienced in any of the industries I worked in before is that it’s really a collaborative field for everyone. Everyone’s trying to deliver exceptional care. So if someone’s doing something and they’re in a different market not a direct competitor. there’s a real openness to sharing the playbook. That wasn’t something I ever saw before. You know, you kind of had those strict walls up from one competitor to another. And so that’s a really interesting thing about health care. And I think it can be inspiring. And it’s, you know, it’s a awesome way to learn from your peers, but also sort of, you know, change the consumer expectation of what they can expect from health care. When I look at you know, my background coming from consumers, you know, I also I also have seen how consumer insights can be leveraged in really effective ways. And so, for example, one thing that has always stuck out with me is the Starbucks splash sticks. So, you know, the little green sticks you put in so it doesn’t spill. And these were introduced in my Starbucks idea blog post back in 2008 and came, I think, from consumers sharing that you know, a solution was needed for their coffee spilling or splashing around. And, you know, I think they came up with ideas. And ultimately, you know, Starbucks took a cue from that and developed the splash deck. And so I think that’s an awesome example of, you know, looking to see how other industries, you know, pay attention to what their customers are saying to, in our case, pay attention to what our patients are saying, because they’ll tell you what the points of friction are. And they’ll tell you you know, how you can you can help solve that and they may even have the idea. So I think that’s a really great way to kind of look across and various industries and and also, you know, pay, you know, the answer in some cases might be right with the customers that you’re already serving.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, as we wrap up here, I wanted to ask you one last question. As far as looking ahead and trends that you’re seeing, certainly there’s a lot to look at in other industries as well. But what trends are you seeing emerging in healthcare and healthcare communication and marketing that could impact how an organization like Inova engages with your patients?
Tracey Schroeder: Yes. And health care is, you know, if you look at all the headlines there, there’s a lot of change right now. It’s an evolving industry. And, you know, everything from workforce shortages, new market entrants, creating competition, margin improvement pressures and, you know, capacity constraints. You know, we demand is very high, particularly in our market right now. And so for us, you know, this oftentimes means rethinking our, you know, referrals and access. Um, our interactions with patients. So for example, many health systems will already text you and we do this as well. We will text you a reminder that you have an appointment coming up. But as a patient, I might want to be able to respond to that text message and say, hey, I’m running 10 minutes late. Are you still going to be able to see me? And have somebody on the other side that can say, well, we can shorten your appointment by 10 minutes, or we can reschedule you for tomorrow at this time. What do you prefer? And right now, we’re not able to really have that back and forth. But I think that’s the level of personalization that’s going to become the expectation. And we’ll need to move in that direction to be able to provide that on a one-to-one level. Similarly, I think patient education is another opportunity where communications will need to play a role, particularly as it relates to how we’re delivering care. So, for example, we used to, you know, most surgeries used to be you’d be in the hospital for a couple of days. That’s not the case with many surgeries anymore. A lot of times they’re happening in outpatient settings. And so, you know, what we’re doing is shifting to leveraging virtual modalities. We’re using remote monitoring. And we’re, of course, we’re still, you know, you still get calls from your care team checking in on you. But this also might mean that we have to get creative with home health options and think about how we expand that in the years ahead. So really, you know, getting creative when it comes to the continuum of care and how we, you know, adjust consumer expectations to that, educate them on those changes, and really make sure they get comfortable with them will be critical.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. Well, Tracey, thanks so much for joining today. You know, as kind of closing out here, what’s your advice for healthcare leaders that like what they’re hearing here, but you know, want to want to prepare for some of these things that you’re outlining?
Tracey Schroeder: Sure. Well, first, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to sit down and talk with you today. It is a great time to work in health care. It’s a really awesome industry to work in. And like I said at the beginning, you know, we have an opportunity to impact lives every single day. And that’s a really gratifying, gratifying space to work in. And it’s rewarding to think about how we can continue to innovate on behalf of our patients and our team members. And as the saying goes, you know, the only thing that’s constant is change. And so it’s imperative, you know, to answer your question. It’s imperative for leaders to stay flexible and nimble and agile, as your podcast is aptly named. Change management is, I think, a discipline that we need more than ever before, because the rate and degree of change can be intimidating and overwhelming for not only our patients, but our team members as well. So You know, I think how one way we get through that is by being very clear on our mission. You know, for us, that’s providing world class health care to every person in every community we have the privilege to serve. And so as long as we continue to center our change on better enabling us to reach that mission, then I think that that that’s going to help us be successful.
