PAINESVILLE, Ohio — Pop quiz. The tri-colored waves at the base of the new logo for Lake Hospital System — make that “Lake Health” — represent:
- Its secondary consumer markets in Ohio’s Geauga, Ashtabula and Cuyahoga counties.
- That the health system treats “mind, body and spirit.”
- The partnership between physicians, community and hospital.
- Land, water and sunrise.
It’s all of the above — or only one of the above, depending on who you talk to in the health system. Lake Hospital, the 107-year-old health system a half hour east of Cleveland, changed its name and its brand last week. It will mean a lot of things to a lot of people (hospital officials say the fourth representation of the three waves is the biggest stretch).
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The bottom line for Lake Health is to tell customers — don’t say patients — that the health system isn’t just about healing the sick, but keeping you well.
“We are much more focused on wellness and prevention and that wasn’t expressed in our old name,” said Gary Robinson, the health system’s vice president for government and community affairs.
“We have two hospitals, but we have many urgent care facilities and outpatient facilities practices,” Robinson also said. “So actually ‘hospital system’ was inaccurate to what we have grown to be.”
Lake engaged in a process that’s particularly important for hospitals, which find it harder to differentiate themselves solely on the care they offer. Hospitals now are told to refer to patients as customers and to start thinking about customer service. Advocates of the new thinking look at the traditional hospital philosophy as if it were a health-care version of Mad Men, where fellas run the show and tell patients exactly what they are going to get, how they’re going to hear about their treatment, and they are stupid if they didn’t like the way it sounds.
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That’s long gone. Competition for patients is increasingly intense. For better or worse, experience suddenly counts — thanks to an era in which insurance reimbursements are tied to patient experiences, and patients Google their health problems and then challenge medical staff. Using the parlance of the Mad Men era — which begins round a Kennedy-Nixon presidential campaign — the old ways are Richard Nixon, but today’s patients are more John F. Kennedy.
Suddenly patients have a choice between the same hospital they’ve always known and a shiny new facility with spa-like amenities and a soaring atrium. Parents can choose to go to a children’s hospital that is known for its quality care, or they can go to a children’s hospital that has the latest equipment and their kids’ favorite Disney characters roaming the hallways.
All other things being equal, which hospital would you choose?
Lake’s proposal is to split the difference: emphasize its quality while selling its  new-age tranquility.
On the quality side, the re-branding will tie together its disparate parts: LakeWest Hospital now is LakeWest Medical Center, LakeEast Hospital is LakeEast Medical Center, and the affiliated PrimeHealth physician network is the Lake Health Physician Group. The new look helps shake Lake away from its roots as a government-run health system. Now, its wellness center, chronic care clinics, and music and massage therapy programs get more prominence in the message.
“Lake Health. For care that starts before you get here. And doesn’t end when you leave,” reads a catch phrase on the health system’s newly designed Web site.
“The payoff is, actually people in those communities in Ashtabula, Geauga and Cuyahoga — and even Lake County — recognize the breadth of services that Lake Health offers,” Robinson said.
But the branding is meant to push the new model, too. The name change coincides with the imminent opening of TriPoint Medical Center, a four-story facility that hopes to better centralize patient care while offering flat-screen televisions and a scenery of small fountains, trees and the soothing sounds of running water.
“It’s a facility that lends itself to healing,” Robinson said.
This is a rebranding executed in tough economic times. TriPoint is not only a chance for Lake to present its fresh face in a fresh facility, it’s a way to save money. The signs at the new facility already reflect the new brand, unlike the signs at other locations.
Employees will use stationery and other “Lake Hospital System” materials until they run out, Robinson said.
