21 minute read
COVID-19 Communications
Special Tools Help Contain a Virus
By Martine Pollard
The cliché “building the plane as we fly it” doesn’t begin to describe the intensity health care professionals, including health care communicators, faced as COVID-19 began its race across the U.S. It would be more accurate to say that we built the plane while flying upside down over mountains through high winds and storms. But we’re still flying. We know that at some point we’ll attempt to safely land the plane right-side-up on a short runway, but that landing site is still far away and its exact location unknown. When it’s important to influence personal decision-making and encourage clear thinking, effective communication like our plane metaphor is a powerful tool. During a public emergency like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, clear communication that captures attention does more than influence: It’s a tool that saves lives.
MESSAGING COUNTS
Do you remember Smokey the Bear and his admonition, “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires,” or McGruff, the Crime Dog, reminding us that we can “Take a Bite Out of Crime?” Public Service Announcements (PSAs) and PSA campaigns like these are communication tools that work for the public good. They create awareness, show an issue’s importance, convey vital information, and create a forum for engagement – all with the purpose of impacting social change. They provide effective information in the public interest, and they’re distributed across a variety of media outlets without charge.
COVID-19’s appearance sparked hundreds of PSAs in the U.S. and around the world. Wear Your Mask, Keep Six Feet of Separation, Wash Your Hands … we continue to see and hear these messages no matter where our devices are tuned. As we learn more about the virus (and the public behavior necessary to contain it), new PSAs frequently pop up. They’re foundational tools used by today’s communicators to influence public behavior.
Hospitals and health care systems know that strategic communication planning is indispensable, especially in times of crisis. Today, the public relies on social media, TV, radio, and the internet to get health and virus containment information. Communicating clearly across these many venues is challenging. As a nation, we’re addressing COVID-19 needs on the fly, and health care messaging matters.
HERE IT COMES
COVID-19’s arrival in Arkansas became very real with Governor Asa Hutchinson’s March 12, 2020 declaration of a statewide public health emergency. Immediately, the Northwest Arkansas health care community, in partnership with the Northwest Arkansas Council, went into crisis planning mode.
Business and health care leaders prepared plans for surging of patients, increasing COVID-19 testing capacity, securing needed personal protective equipment, supporting essential front-line health care workers, developing a COVID-19-specific communications plan with multiple applications, and (most recently) collaborating on COVID-19 vaccination efforts.
They laid all competition aside to focus on a regional approach to the COVID-19 crisis. Besides the Council and its Healthcare Division, participants in the collaborative include Arkansas Children’s Northwest, Community Clinic, Mercy Northwest Arkansas, Northwest Health, University of Arkansas Medical School Northwest (UAMS-NW), Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks, Washington Regional Medical Center, and the Whole Health Institute.
MANY CULTURES, ONE MESSAGE
Avoiding public confusion through consistent messaging – this was the communication group’s charge.
Many patients we serve in Northwest Arkansas principally speak and read languages other than English. It was vital that all communications be shared in multiple languages: English, Spanish, and Marshallese. Recent information from the Northwest Arkansas Council’s report “Engage the Future: A Look at the Growing Diversity in Northwest Arkansas,” explains why: Northwest Arkansas’s population has diversified significantly over the last ten years. Minority populations accounted for approximately 24% of the total NWA population in 2010. In 2019, diverse peoples accounted for nearly 28% of the population, and current estimates are for diverse populations to increase to 31% by 2024. Our Hispanic population accounts for approximately 17% of the population, and while our Marshallese population does not account for a significant percentage of the population (about 15,000 people), Northwest
Arkansas is home to the largest concentration of
Marshallese (people from the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific) outside their island chain.
We began the COVID-19 communications journey in standard ways: Our first regional message was a Joint Statement released March 18, 2020; this was the day Northwest Arkansas’s first COVID-19 case was identified. Simultaneous with the statement’s release, health care organizations rushed to increase testing capacity. So, our next move was to create uniform instructions for testing site workers and provide the public with testing locations.
Contact
Martine Pollard martine.pollard@mercy.net 501-350-8001 ***************** JOINT STATEMENT Sent on behalf of the Northwest Arkansas health care providers
Northwest Arkansas Health Systems Work Together Screening, Treating, Containing the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Messages of social distancing, hand hygiene and being informed on appropriate screening and testing
Northwest Arkansas (March 30, 2020) A message to the Northwest Arkansas community from your regional health care providers: Arkansas Children’s Northwest, Community Clinic, Mercy Northwest Arkansas, Northwest Health System, Washington Regional Medical Center, UAMS Northwest and the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks. The area health care providers and state agencies continue to work and coordinate efforts in screening, treating and containing the coronavirus (COVID-19) as questions continue to circulate in our community from patients, media, employers, family and friends. There are several COVID-19 screening opportunities in the region listed below. If you are concerned that you have COVID-19, we cannot emphasize enough that you please utilize our online and call options before coming to one of our locations. COVID-19 is a contact illness. To protect yourself and our teams, it is important that if testing is required you be tested in an appropriate location where staff have the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). We have tightened our visitor policies and are limiting access into facilities for this very reason. We are also postponing non-urgent patient procedures and encouraging virtual care visits. These are necessary precautions to limit exposure and protect our patients and staff. ************************************************* As the region’s health care providers, we are committed to caring for patients in the safest way possible. In our work together, we are learning more about COVID-19 and are monitoring and adapting to the evolving situation to care for our patients in the safest way possible. Along with protecting our caregivers, we are working to provide the most accurate, up to date information to the public. As we gain new knowledge, we will continue to adjust our response. Though the spread and full impact of COVID-19 is unknown, we are focused on what we do know and modifying our processes and protocols accordingly. Arkansas Governor Hutchinson and local leaders have provided proactive and appropriate measures to slow down the spread of COVID-19, including social distancing and good hand hygiene. Remember, COVID-19 is spread through contact and droplets (coughing/sneezing). To contain the spread in Northwest Arkansas, we must follow CDC guidelines. This does not mean that you must stay home and avoid any contact with the outside world. We must use our common sense:
Contact Martine Pollard martine.pollard@mercy.net 501-350-8001 ***************** JOINT STATEMENT Sent on behalf of the Northwest Arkansas health care providers • Practice Social Distancing: • Avoid groups of 10 or more peoples, particularly in close proximity • Keep six feet of distance from others. COVID-19 is a contact illness. Keeping distance will prevent body or clothes contact. A six-foot distance from others helps prevent being coughed or sneezed on and will help you to stay well and prevent you from carrying the virus to those who can become very ill. As a citizen of this community, what can you do? • Practice Good Social Distancing and Common Sense • Practice Good Hygiene: • Wash your Hands, Wash your Hands, Wash your Hands • Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth • Self-Quarantine: • If you exhibit symptoms, stay home and avoid contact with others in the community or at home • If you have symptoms contact your health care provider either online or by phone to be screened for symptoms and receive any necessary next steps • If you experience extreme symptoms including high fever, shortness of breath, or other symptoms please seek immediate medical attention by contacting your health care provider • Stay Informed: • Visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Arkansas State Health Department (ADH) websites for information and changes in recommendations • Tune into Governor Hutchinson’s daily briefing with expert physicians on his staff. He is doing an excellent job of communicating. • Visit our websites and follow our social media on local updates • Listen to our physicians and the messages they are providing As health care providers, we are partners in the community and our community’s vitality. For those that are able, we encourage you to support our local businesses. We have great and creative businesses who are developing ways for you to safely acquire their goods and products. There has never been a more important time to find ways to shop local and to support the businesses in our community. Again, if you are experiencing symptoms, please CALL your local provider to determine next steps.
Above: The first project of the communications coalition was to issue a Joint Statement as COVID-19 first reached the region.
Below: The Stay Safe, Stay Strong PSA campaign utilizes messaging in three languages: English, Spanish, and Marshallese. This helps reach varying cultures served by health care teams throughout northwest Arkansas.
Anti-masking became a 'thing.' ...We needed to strengthen our message, and fast.
As the area’s larger employers sought guidance for employees testing positive for or exposed to COVID-19, we received calls from owners of small businesses and non-profit organizations who were also anxious about their COVID-19 requirements.
It's said that necessity is the mother of invention. We developed regional COVID-19 Employer Guidance (complete with scripting for health care teams who received phone calls asking for help). The guidance brought public health strategies to the business community, and new community relationships were a positive result. Notably, we connected with numerous small businesses – many Hispanic- or Marshallese-owned – that wanted to work with the health care community to receive regular COVID-19 updates. Northwest Arkansas’s health care voice became known as the trusted COVID-19 health resource. But again, operating on the fly, it felt like we were playing whacka-mole, mainly developing resource tools to meet this need and that need as they cropped up.
WHEN CLEAR MESSAGING IS UNHEEDED
Though we were circulating very pointed communications aimed at masking, social distancing, and handwashing, it didn’t take long to know more was needed. In Northwest Arkansas, as in many areas of the country, it was visibly apparent that many were not hearing/heeding public health messages. Anti-masking became a “thing,” and we knew it would likely lead to a surge in new cases.
We needed to strengthen our message, and fast: We needed a fullblown PSA campaign. It had to be regionally focused, consistent, multifaceted, and multi-lingual. It needed to say, loud and clear: The virus is serious, and every person is needed to control its spread. Messages promoting good public health practices, recorded by familiar local influencers in familiar places, could help people connect personally to the messages and perhaps yield more compliance.
Lacking any funding source, trusted colleagues barreled forward, donating talent and expertise. As we outlined the COVID-19 communications plan, we knew it would need to both capture immediate attention and build public trust over many months. Here’s what we kept in mind: • Design a campaign to encompass any/every phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. • Develop strategies not locked to any specific instance or timeframe, knowing that changes are inevitable as more is learned about the virus. • Make certain the campaign reflects the spirit of the region. • Connect the campaign to all audiences and to all who live in Northwest Arkansas utilizing consistent, solid messages from the health care community.
”SAFE AND STRONG”
Thus, in April 2020, “Safe and Strong” was born. It’s a phrase that captures the spirit of the region. As Northwest
Arkansas was not yet experiencing a significant surge, we considered it a “proactive” campaign, with key messages we hoped would help stem the impact of the deadly virus: Practice social distancing, wash your hands often, clean high touch surfaces, wear a mask covering your mouth and nose.
We developed every message based on health care’s bottom line – help prevent community spread and keep hospital capacity from becoming strained. These messages have not wavered over the months.
A serious new concern in the spring of last year was the number of COVID-positive patients coming from our minority communities, specifically the Hispanic and Marshallese cultures. We began leaning into those new connections with cultural community leaders to create the most precise messages possible.
An instrumental partner in our region’s outreach to the Marshallese, UAMS-NW is a member of the NWA Council Health Care Transformation Division and a part of the communications collaborative.
(Continued on page 15)
A series of flyers in English, Spanish, and Marshallese, including this one on mobile testing for COVID-19 at UAMS-NW, are included in the PSA campaign. Community businesses post messages from the PSA kit to keep their customers informed.
Relationships: Our North Star
Northwest Arkansas’s driving force in understanding our region’s needs includes building strong community relationships and meeting people where they are. While COVID-19 shines a bright light on inequities, it also reveals efforts addressing those inequities, helping pave a way for people and communities to thrive. Northwest Arkansas’s coordinated COVID-19 efforts and messaging are the result of strong professional relationships among the region’s health systems and the Northwest Arkansas The work is guided by Council (and its Health Care Transformation Division). The Division is relatively new to the these voices Council. It was created to facilitate the health care community’s coming together to address current and future health needs of the region. That facilitation was launched when the Council hosted the region’s first-ever health care summit and a deep understanding of in April 2016. Fast forward to July 2019, when the Division regional was officially established. Its first tasks? Implement recommendations of a study to increase access to high-quality specialty care, increase medical research and development, and expand the region’s health care education community needs. offerings. In teeing up implementation of those recommendations, the group was able to quickly pivot its focus to address the COVID-19 crisis.
The Division was the initial setting of the region’s COVID-19 efforts, but it is the extensive relationships and ties among the community, nonprofits, businesses, community leaders, organizers and implementers that enabled the work to start, move forward, and persevere.
Recognizing the importance of relationships in any communication and outreach strategy, the work is guided by these voices and a deep understanding of regional community needs. Tools developed from necessity allow us to keep on innovating; established outreach initiatives are evolving, and we continue to connect with organizations carrying important messages by trusted messengers. Notable during COVID-19 are new affiliations with those often disconnected from traditional communication sources, including ethnically diverse small businesses, culturally diverse populations, and communities with technological barriers. Whether it be developing trilingual COVID-19 resources or implementing efforts to test and vaccinate within the hearts of communities, our mission-driven approach to building strong communities and meeting people where they are is always our North Star. It helps us save lives and contain COVID-19 through outreach and communications.
(Continued from page 13)
People from its Office of Community Health and Research have deep ties with the Marshallese community developed over the past decade. With their help and that of community leaders, our team was able to create useful educational messages and post them where they would most likely be viewed.
Facebook Live and YouTube sessions featured UAMS physician Dr. Sheldon Riklon, one of only two Marshallese/U.S.-accredited physicians in the nation. UAMS-NW also created several COVID-19 educational posters in multiple languages that are now incorporated into the PSA campaign materials.
Along with the Marshallese, in the spring of 2020 our Hispanic population was being significantly affected by COVID-19. Through established health care outreach programs, representatives of the Hispanic community worked with us to create educational messages delivered by trusted messengers through a number of platforms. Again, these followed the campaign’s consistent message: Safe and Strong.
OVERTAKEN
Compared to the rest of Arkansas, case counts in our region were slow to develop. But by late April and early May, as the rest of the state was carefully reopening, our regional patient count began to rise. Elective surgeries and outpatient care reopened, compounding care challenges and leading to congestion and stress on health care resources. Anti-masking remained a significant problem. Though we made every effort to influence the public and slow the spread of the virus, by early summer our region was labeled a national “hot spot.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put a field team in our area tasked with researching and understanding factors leading to the spread. Some of the CDC’s findings suggested that language and cultural barriers could be a contributing factor to our high number of cases, noting that our Hispanic and Marshallese populations were disproportionately affected by the virus. They suggested that our early efforts at sharing critical messaging weren’t reaching everyone. The CDC applauded our extensive efforts toward multi-cultural education, and team members noted that they had not seen another area in the country as dedicated to communicating in such an interdisciplinary way. But clearly, we had to do more.
UNDAUNTED
Trusting that the PSA campaign was robust and sound, the NWA Council decided to expand its scope and reach by funding targeted media buys.
Thus, multimedia communication became an important tool in our toolbox. Airing our PSAs on TV, radio, through outdoor billboards, print, and online, we tapped English-, Spanish-, and Marshallese-language networks. The Council, through its own resources, helped refine our original educational tools and created a centralized location where people could find a multitude of COVID-19 response resources. You can find that today at nwacouncil.org/ covid19/.
A PHASED EFFORT
Safe and Strong’s multimedia launch was in June 2020. That initiated Phase I of the campaign, when we supplemented media messages with frequent joint media releases, statements, and resources from health care entities, along with statewide daily COVID-19 updates.
Because June marked a harrowing upward surge in cases for our region, it became apparent that while the state’s daily virus data updates were helpful, they did not adequately tell the story of what was happening in Northwest Arkansas. The public wanted to know and understand area specifics. So, the Northwest Arkansas daily update became a new, major information resource added to the “Safe and Strong” campaign.
Our weekday updates continue today and include information about state and regional COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, intensive care unit (ICU) utilization, ventilator usage, and updated testing resources. When COVID-19 vaccines became a new area of focus, we incorporated broad communication on vaccination statistics as it became available.
Even with those efforts, more levels of communication were needed
Various health care leaders and regional influencers appear in the print and video messaging series "Stay Safe, Stay Strong."
to address the rampant spread. That meant more funding. The Council’s Health Care Transformation Division asked UAMS-NW to take the lead in requesting an allocation of CARES Act funding administered by the federal government on behalf of the region.
The CDC’s spring assessment of regional cases and our early communication efforts served as a roadmap for the funding request. The request outlined funding needs for collaboration and multi-agency coordination of COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, enhanced case management, and health education communications. In late July 2020, UAMS-NW received funding on behalf of the Division, launching Phase II of the communications campaign. Health care professionals, along with several nonprofit partners, continued their focus on addressing disparities to help decrease the alarming number of cases in our Marshallese and Hispanic populations.
July’s baseline data indicated that approximately 45% of cumulative COVID-19 cases were occurring in the Hispanic community and 19% in the Marshallese community. By January 2021, case numbers in these populations were decreasing. Data show that, in January, 31% of cases were occurring in the Hispanic population and 8% in the Marshallese, a drop of 14% and 11% respectively. Regional messaging and the Safe and Strong campaign were an integral part of that effort.
ADAPT AND ADOPT
Until recently, there’s been little relief in Northwest Arkansas from this horrible virus. We reached a new high in caring for hospitalized COVID-19 patients over the New Year’s holiday, and for months we have been caring for patients numbering in the hundreds both in COVID-19 units and in ICUs.
In recent weeks, our COVID-19 cases have declined, and in late February we hosted, at Governor Hutchinson’s request, a mass vaccination event where 3,000 people received shots. But the end of the pandemic is not near, and the runway is not yet visible. We are making progress, but there is still much to be done as we send our messaging out to motivate social change and help bring an end to the crisis.
Having passed the pandemic’s one-year mark, we are now in Phase 5 of “Safe and Strong.” The PSA campaign’s videos, commercials, and much of our content continue to feature local community members, organizations, and businesses doing their part to beat COVID-19. They show people leading by example, engaging in and advocating for safe practices that we know will slow the spread of the virus and its variants.
We offer our resources and tools to other hospitals and area communication groups, so you can adopt and adapt them to your own community’s needs. “Safe and Strong” addresses cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, and geographic challenges. This has been our laser focus, and it is a strategy we’ve sought to maintain through the course of the pandemic. Keep flying the plane. The runway is ahead. Stay Safe, Stay Strong.
Martine Pollard serves as Executive Director, Community and Public Relations at Mercy Northwest Arkansas in Rogers. Since the beginning of the pandemic, she also serves as the Northwest Arkansas health care community’s liaison and leads Northwest Arkansas’s “Safe and Strong” joint communications effort about which this article is written. You may reach her at Martine.Pollard@ mercy.net.
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es your hospital system comply with CMS, ONC interoperability rules? SHARE is ready and prepared to help participants comply with the final rules by implementing our SHARE daily notifications to community providers. We are making ADTs more readily available to those who need it. SHARE Alerts Effective Spring 2021, hospitals must electronically send admission, discharge and transfers (ADTs) to community providers. Does your hospital system comply with CMS, ONC interoperability rules? SHARE is ready and prepared to help participants comply with the final rules by implementing our SHARE daily notifications to community providers. We are making ADTs more readily available to those who need it. SHARE Alerts Effective Spring 2021, hospitals must electronically send admission, discharge and transfers (ADTs) to community providers. Does your hospital system comply with CMS, ONC interoperability rules? SHARE is ready and prepared to help participants comply with the final rules by implementing our SHARE daily notifications to community providers. We are making ADTs more readily available to those who need it. SHARE Alerts Effective Spring 2021, hospitals must electronically send admission, discharge and transfers (ADTs) to community providers. Does your hospital system comply with CMS, ONC interoperability rules? SHARE is ready and prepared to help participants comply with the final rules by implementing our SHARE daily notifications to community providers. We are making ADTs more readily available to those who need it. SHARE Alerts Effective Spring 2021, hospitals must electronically send admission, discharge and transfers (ADTs) to community providers. Does your hospital system comply with CMS, ONC interoperability rules? SHARE is ready and prepared to help participants comply with the final rules by implementing our SHARE daily notifications to community providers. We are making ADTs more readily available to those who need it. SHARE Alerts Effective Spring 2021, hospitals must electronically send admission, discharge and transfers (ADTs) to community providers. Does your hospital system comply with CMS, ONC interoperability rules? SHARE is ready and prepared to help participants comply with the final rules by implementing our SHARE daily notifications to community providers. We are making ADTs more readily available to those who need it. SHARE Alerts Effective Spring 2021, hospitals must electronically send admission, discharge and transfers (ADTs) to community providers. Does your hospital system comply with CMS, ONC interoperability rules? SHARE is ready and prepared to help participants comply with the final rules by implementing our SHARE daily notifications to community providers. We are making ADTs more readily available to those who need it. SHARE Alerts Effective Spring 2021, hospitals must electronically send admission, discharge and transfers (ADTs) to community providers.
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