Connecting the Dots on the Patient Journey: A Conversation with Suzanne Hendery and Cristal Woodley at Renown Health

Hang around a group of healthcare marketers long enough, and you’re bound to hear the phrase “patient journey.” Optimizing that journey is a stated priority for many organizations. But how do healthcare marketing leaders build the infrastructure to make it happen?

The smart folks at Renown Health, one of Nevada’s biggest health systems, have some answers. I recently caught up with Suzanne Hendery and Cristal Woodley, whose work at Renown surpasses traditional boundaries. Along with marketing communications, they oversee service excellence and Renown’s engagement center, otherwise known as a call center.

With this broad scope of responsibilities, Suzanne and Cristal are uniquely positioned to connect all the touchpoints in the patient journey—most notably through the upcoming launch of online appointment scheduling. 

That’s a major milestone for any healthcare system, and it’s especially impactful for the patients Renown serves. Founded in 1862 during a smallpox epidemic, Renown has always been a healthcare cornerstone in its communities. The non-profit system includes three acute care hospitals, a health insurance plan, a rehabilitation center, numerous outpatient clinics, and a teaching and research affiliation with the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine. They also operate the area's only dedicated children's hospital, Renown Children's Hospital. 

All told, Renown covers a vast region of over 100,000 square miles, including both urban centers and extremely remote rural communities. Access to the right care at the right time is part of Renown’s promise to these communities. 

Renown runs the only Level II trauma center between Sacramento, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah, receiving transported patients from 30 critical access hospitals across multiple states. They’re truly a lifeline to people across Nevada and beyond.  

“If you get in an accident on your tractor, there’s only one place that connects you with the level of care you need, and that’s Renown,” Suzanne says. “We carry a huge responsibility. We’re one of a handful of not-for-profit health systems left in this state, so we care for everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, whether they're insured or uninsured. And we feel very passionate about what we get to do.”

That passion comes through clearly in conversation with Suzanne and Cristal. Like just about every healthcare marketing leader I talk with, they're in this field because they truly care.

Connecting The Dots Of The Patient Journey

Optimizing the patient journey sounds simple in theory, but it’s notoriously challenging to execute in healthcare. To paraphrase behavioral researcher Dean Browell’s comments at a recent industry conference, it’s exciting to imagine the possibilities of AI and machine learning in healthcare—but first, we need to figure out online appointments. 

Suzanne puts a finer point on the problem. “When you compare healthcare to any other consumer experience, it’s ridiculous,” she notes. “You could book a flight to Las Vegas within a few seconds, then show up at the gate and scan the boarding pass on your phone. But if you needed to make an appointment with a primary care physician, you couldn’t do it online—you had to wait until the call center opened.”

All of that is changing now. Renown’s leaders have wholeheartedly prioritized digital transformation—and crucially, granted the budget to make it happen. With this backing, Suzanne and Cristal have worked tirelessly with their colleagues and vendors to integrate all the components involved in online scheduling. The new infrastructure pulls together Amazon, Salesforce, and Epic systems, which need to “speak” to one another effectively to enable appointment-setting. 

With their progress in this arena, Renown is on the brink of achieving “Moneyball Marketing,” a term popularized in healthcare by marketer John A. Marzano. As he often explains, healthcare marketing leaders with the right tools and processes can trace a complicated but connected path between online advertising, social media channels, website interactions, appointment scheduling, and even loyalty over time—and ultimately show a clear return on investment from their work. Investing in marketing becomes more of a financial science—and popular with your leadership—when you can connect the dots across your patient journeys. 

For Suzanne and Cristal, creating this continuity is rewarding on multiple levels. “As marketers, we're constantly sharing programs and services and building emotional connections with our audiences,” Suzanne says. “And now we get to ensure we’re delivering on those promises we're making, by helping patients get access to our amazing doctors.”

At this point in our conversation, I had to acknowledge the skill and dedication it took to drive this initiative forward among both their peers and clinical leaders, who represent almost 600 providers in Renown’s network. While the effort is still in its early days, Renown has achieved strong organizational alignment around improving the patient experience. 

“It truly does take multiple teams to make this happen, from operations to the marketing team to the engagement center,” Cristal says. “It’s been fun to see how a project like this brings an organization together, because we're all trying to do what's right for the patient.”

Not to say that the shift will be easy. “This will be a big culture change with our employed physicians,” Suzanne points out. “We’ve been thinking this through with the head of the medical group. He came up with the great idea to start every new doctor within our online appointment system, so it’s a natural part of joining the Renown network.” 

The Power Of Transformative Leadership 

Having admired Suzanne and Cristal’s work for years, I was not at all surprised to see them championing this transformative effort at Renown. Both of them have a clear focus on service and relationships—and a refreshing enthusiasm and sincerity about their work.  

Suzanne got her start in healthcare marketing as a marketing associate at Baystate Health in Massachusetts. An eager hand-raiser, she has always relished a multitude of responsibilities, from copywriting to design and photography. Suzanne rose in the ranks throughout her 26 years at Baystate, ultimately becoming Vice President, Marketing & Public Affairs at Baystate. 

“I’m a reluctant leader,” she admits with a smile. “I love the people I work with and the work I get to do with storytelling and writing. Some days I get the biggest joy from writing a well-crafted news release celebrating one of our physicians.” When she had the opportunity to join Renown, Suzanne saw the chance to do what she loved in a new region of the country, where the healthcare landscape looks very different.

Meanwhile, Cristal’s path involved some serendipity. “I was earning a degree in accounting and information systems, and I applied for what I thought would be an accounting internship at Renown,” she recalls. “But I got paired up with the marketing department, and I fell in love. I managed our intranet, so I was picking up the phone, talking to just about every department and writing stories about them. I loved it.”

Naturally, Cristal applied for a web coordinator position at Renown right after graduating from college. Soon afterward, she met Suzanne, whose leadership and encouragement have helped propel her career forward. Today, Cristal leads a team of more than 30 professionals to create emotional, engaging campaigns and programs that promote Renown’s services. She’s been recognized as a Rising Star of the Year and a Woman of Achievement in the technology and healthcare sectors.

“I got so lucky that Suzanne came into my life because she’s been an amazing mentor,” Cristal says. “I’m so grateful she came to Reno. She saw something in me that I didn't even know I wanted to provide.”

Redefining The Role Of Healthcare Marketing 

Together, Suzanne and Cristal have steadily expanded their footprint at Renown, driven by a belief that the brand touches every part of the patient experience. After all, there’s a good reason why Suzanne has the Chief Customer Officer title. Their convictions about the purpose of marketing remind me of fellow marketing leaders Douwe Bergsma at Georgia’s Piedmont and Don Stanziano at Pennsylvania’s Geisinger.

“We can run a great marketing campaign, but if a patient has an unpleasant interaction with a provider, they aren't coming back,” Suzanne notes. “That’s why we asked to oversee patient experience measurement, because we wanted to make sure we were delivering on our promise. We're so excited to get to shape the whole continuum of patient care and loyalty.”

One of Cristal’s favorite campaigns was also a cross-functional partnership. “This year our HR team asked us to support recruitment and retention, which included hiring 500 new clinicians,” she says. “Of course, we said yes! Who else is uniquely qualified to own the brand messaging and promotional efforts to bring in those recruits?”

With an ambitious goal and a tight timeline, Cristal and Suzanne’s team took a bold, inclusive approach. Cristal explains, “We took the handcuffs off our employees, with the full support of our CEO, Dr. Brian Erling. We told them, ‘You're all recruiters and ambassadors. Here are talking points, content, videos—make them your own.’ And it’s working! Just recently, we brought on another 75 new physicians.”

Embracing these new functions, along with their other responsibilities, has driven their team to adopt new technology. They leverage data, analytics, and digital tools to build brand awareness, penetrate new markets, drive revenue growth, and strengthen competitive market positions. 

“AI is here to stay, and we’re figuring out where it fits,” Suzanne notes. “We’re looking at how all these tools fit together. Do they improve our efficiency and make life easier for our teams? Are we going to see more productivity? Is it going to help the patient overall? If it's not going to do those things, we're not even considering it.”

Closing The Gaps In Healthcare Access

Another change looming on the horizon, for Renown and many other healthcare systems, is the continued growth of retail health competition. Suzanne’s thinking on this topic aligned with what I’m hearing from more and more leaders. “Thank goodness for retail to shake things up,” she says. “We believe there's room for everybody, and that we can do different things for the same patients.”

She continues, “So how can we reach the nurse at the CVS about getting access to our clinical trials, or graduate medical education, or a physician who can answer a quick question? How can we work together so that the right things are being handled by their team and ours?”

In fact, Suzanne and Cristal see the real competition as a lack of care altogether. In rural communities, the patient journey is not an abstract concept, but a literal trek that could be hours long. “Many people in this country have very little access to healthcare,” Suzanne notes. “In some places, if you're about to have a baby, you stay in a hotel near the hospital, because you may not last four hours in a car,” she says. “If you have a heart attack or a stroke, you turn to the volunteer fire department or the paramedic who lives next door, because you just don't have access to care, other than telemedicine.”

Renown is working to close some of those gaps, with its growing system of care and its progress toward becoming an academic medical center. They’ve maintained a consistent focus on their communities—and putting patients at the center, through both digital tools and brick-and-mortar care, is their focus. When I think of healthcare systems that are truly getting the patient journey right, Renown is amongst those at the top of my list.

(Thanks to Suzanne, Cristal, and the Renown marketing team for their collaboration. I'll be profiling more healthcare marketing leaders in the coming weeks and months. If you'd like to be considered for the series, please contact me.