Opening Keynote: Communicating About the Vaccine: How to Build Confidence with a Skeptical Public
Americans deciding whether to get the COVID-19 vaccine encounter a lot of misinformation. Hospitals and health systems are helping to break through the noise, working in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Learn about key initiatives that are making a difference, including: bilingual public service announcements, radio news releases featuring trusted local clinicians; and educational events, podcasts and social media testimonials.
Sean Barry, Senior Associate Director, American Hospital Association

Understand the Importance of Quick Transformation of Your Communications Strategy in Times of Crisis
COVID-19 has completely reshaped our world. For PR professionals, it has raised the bar for what qualifies as being prepared. 
In this session Carrie will share with you how to adapt your communications strategy for the new, post-pandemic reality but also maintain your reputation in times of unprecedented changes, as well as, build your crisis communications playbook, prepare in advance and apply the right tone and tactics in your communications strategy.
Carrie Williams, Chief Communications Officer, Texas Hospital Association

Exhausted. With No End in Sight: Using Communications to Keep Your Internal Audience Energized
In this session, Rhonda will share with you lessons learned from the internal communications efforts during COVID-19 at the Tufts Medical Center. She will explain to you the tools that the organization used to strengthen employee engagement, increase motivation but most importantly, how to keep going, in what has been, the most challenging year for healthcare professionals across the world.
Rhonda Mann, Vice President, Marketing & Communications, Tufts Medical Center

Lunch Break

Media Relations During COVID-19: 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 

How COVID-19 Has Changed Healthcare Communications on Social Media
In this session Sonny will share lessons learned from the pandemic and explain what it takes to pivot your social media strategy in times of unprecedented change. He will discuss how to provide communities with relevant, informative and educational content, build connections with your target markets and share topics which are unique to your brand.

Sonny Gill, Manager, Social Media, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Short Break

The Strategic Advantage of Owning Your Online Community
Broad-based social networking sites play an important role for modern organizations in enabling them to reach key audiences in platforms they already use. Corporate Facebook and LinkedIn pages, YouTube channels and accounts on Twitter and Instagram are essential communications tools with strong applications in health care.
In this presentation Colleen Young, Community Director for Mayo Clinic Connect, will show how Mayo Clinic has built its owned community capacity as a complement to its broader social media strategy. You will see and hear:
- How Mayo Clinic created its first owned online patient community in 2011 and revitalized it in 2015 by migrating to a new platform and implementing strategic community management
- How the Mayo Clinic Connect community enables Mayo to create deeper online relationships with both existing and prospective patients
- How AI-based conversation translation will enable a richer community experience by enabling speakers of Spanish (and eventually other languages) to participate fully in disease and condition-based groups
- How Mayo Clinic is applying its owned community capabilities beyond patients to serve and engage with other audiences, including staff, external health care professionals and journalists.
Colleen Young, Principal, CY Connect & Community Director, Mayo Clinic Connect

Stopping the Social Media Insanity: Getting Results Without Losing Your Mind 

Kristine S. Austin, Principal, KS Austin Communications

Case Study: Creating Inclusive Web and Social Content For Transgender Patients
Anecdotes and research alike suggest healthcare interactions present challenges of access, exclusion, ignorance, and bias for transgender individuals more than for either the LGB population or the population as a whole. Because of this, building inclusive web and social content is essential when reaching transgender patients seeking services.
The session will share the relationships Marketing established with the medical and patient experience groups and how we continue to develop and refine content strategy when reaching this patient population. It will outline considerations and potential blind spots when sourcing photography, video, and patient stories from the trans population and share a high-level content strategy for pushing this content through social channels.
Aleksandra (Alex) Golota, Marketing and PR Specialist, University of Virginia Health

End of Day One