Sunday, September 27

SHSMD is pleased to include free access once again to Pre-conference Workshops for registrants (except for day passes).

Advanced Registration required due to limited spots. You can select up to three pre-conference workshops: Morning (9-11 AM), Lunch (11:15 AM-12:45 PM) and Afternoon workshops (1-3 PM). Select these workshops during the registration process.

Workshops take a deeper dive into a topic and incorporate engagement activities, including small group work, exercises and discussion. Pre-conference workshops are NOT recorded and therefore, will not be included in the virtual conference recordings.

Those who register and attend a pre-conference workshop will receive additional CEU’s. Refer to the FAQ page for more information on CEUs.

In a post-merger landscape, Corewell Health—Michigan’s largest employer—faced a common challenge: rebuild trust internally while delivering a consistent promise externally. This interactive two-hour workshop shares how Corewell Health developed “Our Commitment,” a cultural framework bridging the brand position and employee value proposition, ensuring team member and patient/member experiences reinforce one another. Participants will apply three practical lessons to their own organizations: rooting brand and culture in purpose, simplifying competing strategic elements, and designing cross-level activation and interactive experiences that help leaders and teams internalize commitments and sustain adoption. Attendees leave with templates to accelerate alignment, activation, and measurement.

Speakers: Holly Sullivan, Vice President, Brand, Marketing and Consumer Experience, Corewell Health & Jeff Gourdji, Senior Partner, Health Care Practice, Prophet 

The shift away from inpatient services, aging payer mixes, and need for sufficient scale require health systems to expand geographically and grow outpatient services. BDC Advisors’ Geographic Expansion and Outpatient Market Growth Model addresses these strategic challenges. After prioritizing markets and services, key design and implementation details are produced. John Muir Health, a $2.6B regional not-for-profit integrated health system, applied the model. Together, we identified individual growth opportunities in two markets projected to increase EBIDA by $23M annually with a 22% IRR and $308M in NPV. We will also discuss the enterprise-wide transformation required to grow services in underdeveloped geographies.

Speakers: Paul Deeringer, Chief Strategy Officer, John Muir Health & Bob Dickinson, Managing Director, BDC Advisors 

Learn to build a foundational measurement framework focused on key outcomes: patient acquisitions, appointments, and revenue. Explore HIPAA-compliant methods to connect leads/prospects to EMR systems (e.g., Epic) for accurate tracking of campaign-driven patient conversions. Gain skills to visualize ROI results through clear, actionable dashboards that demonstrate marketing’s impact on business growth. Understand key campaign setup steps, techniques and platforms to enable measurements across the marketing conversion funnel.

Speakers: Jason Miller, Executive Director Marketing Insights & Analytics, Johns Hopkins & Apoorva Gupta, Sr. Digital Marketing Analyst, Johns Hopkins 

Healthcare organizations are navigating a workforce that spans multiple generations, each with different expectations, trust patterns, and communication preferences. This session explores how to communicate clearly across a multi-generational workforce without diluting culture or brand. Participants will learn how to design internal communications that maintain one organizational voice while adjusting tone, format, and channels so messages truly land. Through practical examples and interactive exercise, attendees will gain tools to reduce message fatigue, improve engagement, and strengthen internal alignment that ultimately supports trust, retention, and external brand strength.

Speakers: Mari Considine, Chief Brand & Marketing Officer, Acenda Integrated Health & Cari Burke, AVP, Brand & Engagement, Acenda Integrated Health 

(Sponsored Pre-Conference Workshop & Lunch) From Access to Action: Turning Epic Into a Growth Engine for Health Care Marketing SOLD OUT

This workshop is for attendees from hospitals and health systems. Limited spots available.
Epic is no longer just a clinical system—it’s becoming a powerful platform for marketing growth. In this session, we’ll recap the key Epic tools available to marketers and then explore real-world case studies from systems across the country. Learn how marketing and IT partner to activate Epic’s engagement and analytics capabilities, connect campaigns to appointments and service-line volume, and move beyond vanity metrics to measurable impact. We’ll share what worked, what didn’t, and the practical steps required to make Epic part of your marketing strategy. Walk away with a roadmap for driving real growth and activating Epic within their own organization.

Speaker: Jenny Bristow, CEO & Founder,
Hedy & Hopp

(Sponsored Pre-conference Workshop & Lunch) Healthcare's Most Overlooked Brand Channel: How Marketing Leaders Are Winning with Mobile

This workshop is for executive level attendees from hospitals and health systems. Limited spots available.

Your mobile app is one of the most frequent brand touchpoints a patient has with your health system. Yet most systems still treat it as an IT project. The marketing leaders seeing measurable results have made a different choice: they own mobile as a brand channel.

In this session, a veteran healthcare CMO and Gozio Health's Chief Strategy Officer (former health system patient experience leader) share what they've learned from years of leading mobile patient experience initiatives at major health systems. Together, they'll explore why marketing is the natural owner of the mobile relationship, how to make the internal case for investment, and what separates the systems seeing real results from those still treating mobile as an afterthought. The session is interactive: expect breakout exercises designed to help you audit your own mobile strategy and build an internal pitch you can take home.

Speakers: Amy Stevens, Chief Marketing Officer, Tidelands Health & Katie Logan, Chief Strategy Officer, Gozio Health

As healthcare enters the post-AI era, consumer expectations for seamless, personalized digital experiences are higher than ever. This session will take attendees through the full journey of transforming a concept into a measurable strategy. We’ll explore how to create a compelling vision for digital engagement, define processes and requirements, and conduct research that informs design and product decisions. Learn how to integrate product knowledge with human-centered design principles to deliver intuitive, consumer-focused experiences. Finally, we’ll cover how to measure success—using data storytelling, key metrics, and ROI reporting—to ensure your strategy drives both engagement and organizational value.

Speakers: Kayla Robertson, Executive Director Marketing, Providence & Annie Takagi, Director Web Experience, Providence 

What does it take to turn experience from a concept into a measurable driver of outcomes? Grounded in the book Return on Human Experience, this interactive workshop introduces a clear, practical framework for advancing human experience across healthcare settings. Designed for both patient experience leaders and professionals from marketing, consumer experience, and related fields, this session bridges disciplines to align around a shared, human-centered approach. Through real-world examples, peer exchange, and guided reflection, participants will explore how to apply proven principles in their own organizations, leaving with actionable ideas and a clearer path forward.

Speaker: Jason Wolf, President, The Beryl Institute

Feeling included, seen, and understood triggers measurable neurochemical responses in the brain; responses that directly influence trust, engagement, and decision-making. This session explores how neuroscience, storytelling, and design intersect to create messaging that fosters belonging and resonates with patients, caregivers, and staff. A case study from a rural hospital system demonstrates how these principles can be applied across health care settings to inform more effective marketing and improve engagement.

Speakers: Lourdes Edralin, Regional VP Marketing & Communications, Skagit Regional Health & Sally Mildren, CEO & Chief Strategist, Commonwell Marketing 

How are you responding to your community’s call for child mental health solutions? As a top concern for parents, providers and as one of the nation's most urgent community health priorities, there is no one-size-fits-all solution—and resources are often limited. Marketing, communications, and planning professionals at both pediatric and adult healthcare organizations are increasingly called upon to support organizational responses while access and capacity challenges persist. In this interactive workshop, participants will work through a practical playbook for developing a children's mental health MarComm strategy tailored to their community. Through real-world examples, discussion and dialogue, attendees will learn approaches to assess local needs, define measurable goals, build strategic partnerships, select meaningful outcome metrics, and communicate impact to leadership. Participants will leave with a customizable framework, planning tools, and actionable resources to advance sustainable community impact.

Speakers:

Dr. Ariana Hoet, Executive Clinical Director, The Kids Mental Health Foundation, Breanne Taylor, Administrative Director, The Kids Mental Health Foundation, Donna Teach, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, & Katie Thomas, National Director of Content and Educational Partnerships, Nationwide Children’s Hospital