Whidbey General Hospital and its clinics will transition to WhidbeyHealth next month.
A new sign will be unveiled June 13 at the hospital, which will be known as WhidbeyHealth Medical Center.
WhidbeyHealth will be the umbrella name for all hospital services and locations such as WhidbeyHealth Women’s Care and WhidbeyHealth Primary Care. Workers plan to install signs at those locations June 11-12.
“We’re more than a general hospital,” Chief Executive Officer Geri Forbes said. “We’re unifying under the name WhidbeyHealth to better reflect our range of services and continuity of care.”
She announced the new name during a town hall meeting in Langley in January. The Whidbey Island Public Hospital District includes multiple services, including eight clinics.
The hospital conducted market research that indicated “uneven awareness” that services are connected or coordinated, according to a document from consultant HDR. Many of the clinics operated with different names and signs, making it harder for the public to “connect the dots” between them and Whidbey General. The eight clinics operate under six different names.
The research also indicated more people would access health care services if they knew about them and that people value providers working as a team to care for them.
Previous CEO Tom Tomasino’s administration began talking about the idea with the hospital board more seriously after the public passed a $50-million bond to build a new hospital wing.
The hospital decided to wait nearly six months after the announcement to implement the change. That was by design, said Keith Mack, the hospital marketing manager. Officials didn’t want to spring the change on people who might assume another entity had purchased the hospital.
“We didn’t want to shock anyone,” he said. “We didn’t want to have someone walk up and say, ‘What is this?’”
Instead, they shared the information at a series of town hall meetings. The delivery fell a little flat, however, when some people criticized the change as a waste of money. The district spent in the ballpark of $60,000 hiring consultants to conceptualize a new name and logo and may spend as much as $115,000 implementing the change.
The name change makes sense now as the hospital is in the midst of building a new wing and some of the other locations need signs regardless, Mack said. He’s heard anecdotally that other hospitals that made similar changes saw increased use of clinics and other services.
The name change also includes a newly-designed website that should be easier to navigate, Mack said. Officials have been working on improving communication with the public. Those efforts include videotaping and posting the hospital board’s 7 a.m. meetings online. The first video went up last month and Mack said 75 people watched it.
“I consider that a success,” he said.
They continue to work the kinks out. They are doing the work in house to keep costs down. Audio in a meeting room next to a construction site has been a challenge, Mack said.
