Atrium Health responds to a crisis—and builds its brand

When you think of a content marketing program, you most likely think of ongoing brand-building efforts. Atrium Health created a content marketing program out of whole cloth to spread timely information as Hurricane Florence bore down on the Atlantic coast in September 2018. This information hub has earned first place in the “Content Marketing and Brand Journalism” category of Ragan’s Health Care PR and Marketing Awards.

Knowing it would be called upon to deliver information to a number of internal and external audiences, the corporate communications team adopted a newsroom approach, creating a web page updated frequently with the latest information.

Content posted as the hurricane approached covered basic preparedness tips, such as how to prepare your home for a hurricane. It also linked to other resources, including emergency management websites, emergency room wait times and more.

This was no simple news channel, though; it was a work of genuine content management. For example, one story and accompanying video addressed how Atrium was able to medivac infants from one medical center to one away from the storm. Another piece explained how nurses flew via Atrium’s Medcenter Air service to provide relief for nurses working at the hospital most affected by the storm.

Over 30 days, the team produced more than 60 unique pieces of content.

We congratulate the team of Chris Berger, Katie McKiever, Kate Gaier, Margaret Gilmore, Teri Mitchell Porter, Seth Stratton, Claire Simmons, Jerrika Swartz, Marcey Stone, Katie Thomas, Jason Schneider, Abby Lumsden, Melanie Davis, Lauren Moskowitz, Elise Nielson, Jim Wallace, Jonathan Huffman, Hayley Lyons, Jennifer Stover, Amanda Lea, Jolie Shifflet, Carly Stephenson Wooten, Ashley Brown and Savannah Simons.