Registration and Morning Coffee
Be First, Be Right, Be Credible: Applying CDC’s Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Principles in Real-World Situations
CDC’s Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) curriculum provides trainings, tools, and resources to help health communicators, emergency responders, and leaders of organizations communicate effectively during emergencies; including structure for communicating with audiences under extreme stress. Learn about the CERC core principles and how they apply to each phase of a crisis. The presentation will include examples of how CERC can be used for natural disasters, chemical or radiological disasters, infectious disease outbreaks, and other events.
Vivi Siegel, Associate Director for Communications, Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
How to Turn a Crisis Into Opportunity
Drawing upon their own experiences, Leilani and Marina will provide insights and strategies on how to navigate the challenging times and capitalize on the opportunities that crises can offer.
Leilani Pearl, Senior Vice President, Chief Communications Officer, Parkinson’s Foundation
Marina Joseph, National Senior Director, Communications & Marketing, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada
Humor in Healthcare: How to Create Engaging Internal Communications that Stand Out
In this session, Colleen Delaney, senior director of Internal Communications at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, shares tips for creating successful, engaging (and funny!) communications materials to help messages be memorable and engagement metrics successful.
Colleen Marshall Delaney, Senior Director of Internal Communication, Massachusetts General Hospital
Lunch for Speakers and Delegates
Preparing Your Leaders for High-Stakes Interviews During Crisis
- How to assess your key objectives and messages
- Identifying the pitfalls for your leader
- Setting your leader up for success
- Preparing Leaders for TV versus print
Marina Jimenez, Director, Communications, Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, UHN
Media Relations During Crisis: How the Pandemic Shaped Hospital Media Relations, Collaboration and Information Sharing
During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital media relations became more important than ever. Hospitals had a role to play as public health voices, while also caring for and protecting the most vulnerable. Demand for information went up, and hospital communicators were tasked with ensuring the public had the information they needed, but that staff and patient privacy was always protected.
Michaela Schreiter, Manager, Communications Strategy and Media Relations, The Ottawa Hospital
The Future of Healthcare Media Relations - Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic
In this interactive session, Serena will share with you how COVID-19 has changed media relations and what we, as communications professionals, have done to adapt. She will share with you a step-by-step guide on delivering public health messages from trusted sources and tips for managing a constant crisis. Serena will also talk you through the importance of having the right content strategy on social media during a crisis based on a data used in a study that Brigham has done in collaboration with Boston University.
Serena Bronda, Program Manager, External Communications, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Networking and Refreshment Break
The Strategic Advantage of Owning Your Online Community
The hallmark of successful online communities is connection and conversation. But if no one is talking, you don’t have a community. To build a thriving online patient community, you need strategic community management.
In this presentation, Colleen Young, online community strategist and Community Director of Mayo Clinic Connect, shares lessons from the field and guides you through a methodology that works. You’ll learn how to:
- Establish an active, thriving community using strategic community management and prepare for success
- Recruit, inspire and train volunteer leaders to scale moderation as the community grows
- Co-create projects with community members that benefit both the community and your organization
Colleen Young, Principal, CY Connect & Community Director, Mayo Clinic Connect
You Got This! Build a Social Media Presence in the New Reality
- Discover what’s next for social media platforms to ensure you’re in the know.
- Learn how the small social media team at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital builds a social media presence to align with their science/research messages—and how you can tailor those best practices to fit your organization.
- Learn how to promote company culture as an incentive for recruitment and new growth and how to easily mine your internal ambassador group of employees to maximize incoming content and message sharing.
Carrie Strehlau, Senior Social Media Specialist, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
End of Day One
Interactive Crisis Simulation Workshop with Nancy Seideman, Former Vice President for Academic Communications and Reputation Leadership at Emory University: Crisis Communications in the New Reality
In this expanded workshop, communications strategist Nancy Seideman will explore how crisis communications is changing in the post-pandemic world.
Combining long-standing best practices with new strategies and tactics tapped in managing pandemic-related communications, Nancy will review the essential components of an effective crisis communications plan, including after-action steps to maintain your organization’s reputation.
The interactive workshop includes a challenging crisis scenario that provides an opportunity to collaborate with fellow delegates in implementing a real-time, comprehensive communications response.
Topics include:
- Advance preparation required to manage any crisis scenario
- Establishing and leading a team; working with executive leadership and partners
- The components of an effective communications action plan to implement: The first hour; the first 24 hours; and as a crisis continues
- Communicating in an increasingly aggressive environment
- Managing internal and external expectations
- Maintaining an organization’s reputation throughout a crisis
- Critical post-crisis action steps
