Redefining health care

How do you make the largest health care network in New England more human?

Over the last two decades, Mass General Brigham’s (formerly Partners HealthCare) has grown to be the largest health care network – and private employer – in New England. When they hired us to write and produce their 2014 Annual Report, we were proud to associate ourselves with an industry leader. But we quickly saw that too much of the conversation was focused on their sheer scope and saw an opportunity to expand the conversation beyond the size of their system.

Services Provided:

• Design
• Content
• Video/Photography
• Strategic Messaging
• Digital
• UX/UI
• Branding

Nurturing a new approach

As Mass General Brigham’s Creative Agency of Record, we’ve worked closely with stakeholders, participated in system-wide meetings, collaborated with multiple departments, and had frank conversations with major players at both the corporate and institution level. We’ve made their priorities our own, making sure that everything we do responds to a unified, coherent strategy. This relationship did not come about overnight: it has been built and nurtured over the past five years by the nature of the projects we’ve tackled. Here are a few examples:

• From before we were brought on as agency of record, we’ve been creating Mass General Brigham’s Annual Report – for nearly 7 years now. From the beginning, we approached the Annual Report project as an exercise in strategic marketing, building narratives that helped define Mass General Brigham’s position in the marketplace, articulate priorities, and affirm institutional commitments.

• Connect with Partners serves as the public face for thought leadership, innovation, and community impact. Like with the Annual Reports, working on the blog has given us access to the people and ideas that drive Mass General Brigham forward. It has also given us a profound understanding of some of the most important issues facing health care today, from cost containment to government relations, the opioid epidemic, and innovation in care.

• The Quality and Safety Website involved much more than digital design: we worked with the entire Quality and Safety Team to reframe the way we talk about quality and safety to the public, focusing on how the Mass General Brigham system helps to improve outcomes and keep patients healthier. We restructured the site around a patient-centric model, one that is becoming the standard way of thinking about the health care experience.