St. Mary’s Medical Center with more than 2,000 employees, located in Palm Beach County, FL and owned by the corporate giant Tenet Healthcare, hardly qualifies as a small business. However, a recent public relations disaster resulting in the closure of its pediatric heart program and the resignation of the facility’s chief executive officer, presents significant crisis communications management lessons for all businesses, large and small. St. Mary’s actions, namely blaming CNN, a national news network, for the program’s inability to survive left many public relations professionals, policymakers and the general public shaking their heads.
For an overview of the chain of events, visit these links:
Becker’s Hospital Review: A CNN investigation, a Closed Heart Surgery Program, a Resigned CEO: What Happened at St. Mary’s Medical Center?
New York Daily News: Florida Hospital Shuts Down Child Open Heart Surgery Program, Blames ‘Inaccurate’ Media Reports
WPTV-TV: St. Mary’s Medical Center Closing Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery Program
The Palm Beach Post: St. Mary’s broken kids’ open heart program: Four lessons
National coverage of St. Mary’s troubled program reveals media relations missteps from the beginning of the crisis to the announcement that the program would end. How the hospital responded to media inquiries and reporting, treated bereaved parents and attempted to set the record straight are clear indications of a flawed crisis communications policy. And while we readily admit that it is easy to point out what St. Mary’s did wrong, let’s focus on what your small business or organization can do right to avoid a public relations disaster.
A previous LGK post, What Your Small Business Can Learn from a Big PR Crisis, outlines several tips, including having a process in place and knowing how and when to communicate during a crisis.
In Putting Out Fires – 6 Tips for Taking Control of a Crisis, Heather Bliss puts together an excellent list of suggestions. Here are a few highlights:
Develop a crisis plan in advance. Prepare for an eventual crisis, before it happens. Have a preliminary crisis protocol plan in place so you can respond quickly,… This plan should include the key crisis communications leaders, executive leadership, spokespersons and where and when you will come together in the event of a crisis. Include conference call dial-in details for remote staff and a preliminary company FAQ document that can be updated as needed. Most importantly be sure all executives and potential spokespeople have been media trained and practice answering tough questions, so they are ready to stand tall in the event of a crisis situation. Lastly, ensure the plan calls for all outbound social media communications to be halted until a statement is developed. It will be imperative to monitor all chatter and take specific and re-occurring complaints into account when drafting a response.
Assess the situation. The most important thing to do before devising any response is to get the right people in the room, or on the phone, and assess the situation. Make sure all affected parties are accounted for and represented in the meeting, and that their opinions on potential response and backlash are taken into consideration.
Consider all outcomes. Once you have all the appropriate leaders in the room and have assessed the situation, you can brainstorm all possible questions and develop consistent answers for each audience. This includes employees, media, shareholders, customers, partners, the local community, social media, etc. All tough questions, and potentially damaging speculation, should be addressed, and messaging crafted to position the situation in the most accurate and most direct way. … In many cases, legal or financial hold-ups may hinder your ability to communicate answers on certain questions, in this case be honest in what you can and can’t answer at this point in time.
Create response team assignments. In any crisis the speed in which a company responds is of the utmost importance. Dividing and conquering all communications needs at once will help ensure you are timely in reaching all affected audiences. Employee and customer emails will need to be crafted and sent before speculation spreads. FAQs will need to be developed in response to the questions raised in the crisis, events may need to be planned to bring the media or employees up to speed, and press and social media statements need to be issued.
Issue a statement. Now that all potential tough questions have been addressed and you have deemed the situation worthy of a media response, you are ready to issue your media statement. Ensure the statement is factual, void of drama, and offers a solution or timeline for next steps in addressing the problem. Be sure the statement is then reviewed and approved by the company leadership, spokesperson and legal department.
Get to work on the big picture. Once the short term needs are addressed, a longer-term action plan needs to be put into motion.
Does your business or organization have internal tools and controls in place to manage a crisis and avoid a PR disaster? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.
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