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D E B A T E Open Access
Advertising in health and medicine: using
mass media to communicate with patients
James K. Elrod
1
and John L. Fortenberry Jr.
1,2*
Abstract
Background: Advertising—a marketing communications method involving the paid use of mass media to deliver
messages to desired audiences—represents one of the most common and effective avenues for engaging current
and prospective patients. Although late to proliferate in the health services industry due to tradition, the medium
of communication is now firmly established and routinely deployed by health and medical organizations far and
wide. Despite widespread use, healthcare providers must take opportunities, when and where possible, to stay
abreast of the latest details concerning advertising and its associated applications, increasing the likelihood of
successful audience engagements.
Discussion: Maintaining an awareness of current developments in health services advertising can be facilitated by
acquiring operational perspectives and practices from peer institutions. Most any healthcare provider can benefit
from experiential views as they can shape and hone advertising approaches. Gaining such insights can be difficult,
given competitive sensitivities, but occasionally healthcare institutions are compelled to share knowledge in
published accounts, with this particular article following suit. Specifically, insights and experiences from Willis-
Knighton Health System’s extensive and historic use of advertising are shared, bolstering the experiential accounts
available in the literature and supplying operational guidance for health and medical providers.
Conclusions: Advertising, if well devised and deployed, offers healthcare providers opportunities to dramatically
improve their fortunes by successfully engaging current and prospective patients, hastening exchange and building
vital market share. In pursuit of advertising excellence, health and medical establishments can bolster associated
endeavors by tapping into the experiences of other healthcare providers, permitting insights which might
potentially be incorporated into communicative pathways. This account sheds light on the advertising operations
of a major health system, supplying food for thought for the advancement of advertising acumen.
Keywords: Advertising, Marketing communications, Promotion, Hospitals, Healthcare
Background
Health and medical establishments provide arguably the
most essential services offered in any given community.
From quality-of-life enhancements to life-saving inter-
ventions, the services provided by healthcare organiza-
tions are without parallel, making these entities key
community assets [1–3]. But despite the skill of
physicians, the magnitude of medical technologies, the
compassion of nurses, or the benefit of any other associ-
ated investment, healthcare services—even those of ex-
ceptional quality—possess very little impact potential
unless they are communicated effectively to current and
potential patients [4–11].
In their quests to engage audiences, healthcare institu-
tions generally turn to the marketing communications
mix, a collection of pathways for directing messages to
desired groups [7,12,13], with advertising being one of
the most commonly utilized and successfully pursued
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* Correspondence: john.fortenberry@lsus.edu
1
Willis-Knighton Health System, 2600 Greenwood Road, Shreveport, LA
71103, USA
2
LSU Shreveport, 1 University Place, Shreveport, LA 71115, USA
Elrod and Fortenberry BMC Health Services Research 2020, 20(Suppl 1):818
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05599-3
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
avenues for doing so [4,7,12]. Advertising uses mass
media (e.g., television, radio, newspaper, billboard) to de-
liver messages to current and prospective customer pop-
ulations, with these communications being paid for by
the advertising party [7,8,13]. Although late to prolifer-
ate in the health services industry due to tradition, this
medium of communication is now firmly established
and routinely deployed by health and medical organiza-
tions far and wide [4,6,14,15].
Advertising offers great potential for establishing ef-
fective dialogues with customers, but care must be taken
to devise and deploy it effectively, something which re-
quires a keen understanding of its characteristics and ex-
ceptional attention to detail on operational fronts. As
such, healthcare providers must take opportunities,
when and where possible, to stay abreast of the latest de-
tails concerning advertising and its associated applica-
tions and strategies, increasing the likelihood of
successful audience engagement endeavors [8,9,15].
Maintaining an awareness of current developments in
health services advertising can be facilitated by acquiring
operational perspectives from peer institutions. Gaining
such insights can be challenging, given competitive sen-
sitivities, but occasionally healthcare establishments are
compelled to share associated knowledge in published
accounts, with this particular article following suit. Spe-
cifically, insights and experiences from Willis-Knighton
Health System’s extensive and historic use of advertising
are shared, bolstering the experiential accounts available
in the literature and supplying operational guidance for
health and medical providers.
Definition and overview
To best understand advertising, it is helpful to first gain
an awareness of its context and placement in the greater
discipline of marketing. Formally defined, marketing is
“a management process that involves the assessment of
customer wants and needs, and the performance of all
activities associated with the development, pricing,
provision, and promotion of product solutions that sat-
isfy those wants and needs”[7], p. 288. As presented in
this definition, promotion is a prominent component of
marketing, something further illustrated by its inclusion
as one of the Ps in the classic expression known as the
four Ps of marketing (i.e., Product, Price, Place, Promo-
tion). The promotion aspect of marketing essentially en-
tails any and all elements associated with engaging
audiences, with the core pathways for engagement being
depicted in a descriptive model known as the marketing
communications (or promotions) mix [7,16].
Classically illustrated, the marketing communications
mix contains five principal avenues of communication;
namely, advertising (i.e., the paid use of mass media to
deliver messages), personal selling (i.e., the use of sales
agents to personally deliver messages), sales promotion
(i.e., the use of incentives, such as contests and free give-
aways, to encourage patronage), public relations (i.e., the
use of publicity and other unpaid promotional methods
to deliver messages), and direct marketing (i.e., the deliv-
ery of messages via mail, the Internet, and similar routes
directly to consumers) [7,8]. Healthcare institutions
evaluate each option and select one or more believed to
be most capable of reaching target audiences, all for the
purpose of enticing patronage or compelling some other
form of meaningful exchange [7,13].
Of the avenues identified in the marketing communi-
cations mix, advertising is perhaps the best known and
first method to come to mind when considering promo-
tions opportunities. This should not come as a surprise
as advertising—formally defined as “a promotional
method involving the paid use of mass media to deliver
messages”[7], p. 219—is the most public of communica-
tive avenues. Television commercials promoting the lat-
est offerings of an urgent care center, magazine
advertisements communicating the grand opening of a
medical clinic, billboard advertisements presenting the
current wait time at a hospital’s emergency department,
and other open conveyances appear prominently and
frequently across scores of communities, making adver-
tising a familiar and robust influence easily recognized
by most anyone [15,16].
While advertising is now a mainstay of the health ser-
vices industry, this was not always the case. Prior to the
1980s, advertising was viewed to be beneath the dignity
of medical providers, with some also fearing its potential
to impact referrals between and among caregivers, the
time-honored method of patient acquisition. Further, the
American Medical Association prohibited its members
from engaging in advertising. During this era, the health-
care industry’s stance was quite unusual as other indus-
tries had been using advertising for decades, benefiting
from its deployment. In the 1980s, however, resistance
against health services advertising diminished, aided by
the US Federal Trade Commission’s scrutiny of the
American Medical Association’s ban on its members’
use of advertising, something which ultimately led to its
relinquishment. Going forward, health services advertis-
ing began to flourish, and today, it thrives, having be-
come a foundation of healthcare industry operations and
an established component of the communications ar-
senal of most any health services organization [4,6,7,
12,15].
Institutional background and deployment history
With origins dating back nearly a century, Willis-
Knighton Health System has faced and continues to face
all of the challenges associated with delivering healthcare
services, one of which involves communicating
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effectively with customer groups. Based in Shreveport,
Louisiana and situated in the heart of an area known as
the Ark-La-Tex where the states of Arkansas, Louisiana,
and Texas converge, Willis-Knighton Health System
holds market leadership in its served region where it de-
livers comprehensive health and wellness services
through multiple hospitals, numerous general and spe-
cialty medical clinics, an all-inclusive retirement com-
munity, and more. The prized position of market
leadership did not occur overnight; it instead resulted
from painstaking efforts on multiple fronts, with associ-
ated growth pursuits largely beginning in the 1970s as
part of a comprehensive expansion initiative.
During this era, myriad growth-fueling innovations
were pursued, including adoption of the hub-and-spoke
model [17,18], establishing centers of excellence [19],
expanding physical space via the practice of adaptive re-
use [20,21], and more. Of these, one most integral to
building patient volume was on the marketing commu-
nications front; namely, the early embracement of adver-
tising as a means of engaging audiences [14–16]. Willis-
Knighton Health System’s use of advertising happens to
be one of the most enduring in the health services in-
dustry, as the establishment adopted the medium of
communication nearly a decade prior to the industry’s
broad acceptance of such in the 1980s [9,14,15]. Its
adoption primarily was compelled by Willis-Knighton
Health System’s desires to more effectively and reliably
communicate its offerings to the public, something that
the primary communications vehicle of the day, public
relations, routinely fell short of achieving. As a result of
this early experimentation, Willis-Knighton Health Sys-
tem gained advertising proficiencies which advanced its
strategic and tactical communicative prowess. This
afforded an enduring competitive advantage, which even
today, years after advertising’s arguably universal accept-
ance in the health services industry, continues to amplify
the institution’s marketing communications efforts [14,
15].
Context within marketing communications
In engaging current and prospective patients, Willis-
Knighton Health System makes use of the full range of
the marketing communications mix. Of the components
of the mix, advertising constitutes the institution’s most
significant communications investment [15], and gener-
ally is the first component to be considered whenever
promotions needs arise. Several examples of recent
newspaper and billboard advertisements, these promot-
ing Willis-Knighton Health System’s“Healthcare Her-
oes”campaign, are presented in Figs. 1and 2, and
related television commercials are available at the fol-
lowing link: https://www.wkhs.com/video/commercials.
Core advertising opportunities classically have been
placed into three categories: print, electronic, and out-
door. Notable categories within print include newspaper
and magazine advertising; within electronic, they include
television, radio, and Internet advertising; and within
outdoor, they include billboard, street furniture, and
transit advertising. Although the particular communica-
tion routes differ in form and delivery, they each share
the common bond of using mass media, permitting large
Fig. 1 A newspaper advertisement promoting Willis-Knighton Health System’s“Healthcare Heroes”campaign
Elrod and Fortenberry BMC Health Services Research 2020, 20(Suppl 1):818 Page 3 of 8
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
(i.e., mass) audiences to be exposed to messages carried.
This, of course, is a key requirement of advertising, with
paid use of mass media being its most distinguishing fea-
ture, differentiating it from other components of the
marketing communications mix [7,15,22–24].
For advertising’s part of the marketing communica-
tions mix, Willis-Knighton Health System relies on a
particular combination of media. Recently, the institu-
tion has been concentrating the bulk of its advertising in
print media (41% of advertising expenditures), with the
majority of expenditures being directed toward news-
paper advertising, followed by magazine advertising.
Electronic media options consume 31% of advertising
expenditures, with television being the predominant
media expenditure in the category, followed by Internet
advertising. Outdoor media, almost exclusively billboard
advertising, consumes 28% of advertising expenditures,
rounding out the allotment. The noted array of advertis-
ing media tapped for promoting the institution and its
services was devised based on a combination of educa-
tion and experience, yielding keen insights on media
effectiveness.
Of course, the formulation of Willis-Knighton Health
System’s media mix is not static. Instead, it changes as
media, markets, and people change in an effort to ensure
that communications are properly tailored to current
conditions. While alterations of the institution’s media
mix historically have been subtle, environmental circum-
stances occasionally require more comprehensive modi-
fications. One such environmental change, occurring
gradually in recent years and continuing to evolve, in-
volves the proliferation of computer tablets and smart-
phones in society. This change has dramatically altered
historic patterns of information consumption, bolstering
demand for electronic content, typically at the expense
of print content [25–28]. This prompted Willis-
Knighton Health System to begin increasing its invest-
ment in electronic advertising, most notably, Internet
placements, while diminishing print advertising expendi-
tures in concert with media trends noted in the
marketplace.
Despite the clear trend toward electronic communica-
tions, the institution has proceeded cautiously in adjust-
ing its media mix. As a comprehensive health services
provider, Willis-Knighton Health System’s services ap-
peal to virtually every segment of the population, with
some groups having greater tendencies for innovation
adoption than others. As such, media mix alterations
have been gradual to ensure that those customer groups
who are less receptive to electronic content are not
neglected even as increasing numbers of people shift
away from once dominant print media preferences. This
particular scenario illustrates the need for healthcare
providers to closely monitor environmental trends in the
context of their customer populations, ensuring that
findings are taken into account when formulating adver-
tising budgets and making associated selections from
among media options.
Strengths
After decades of use, Willis-Knighton Health System has
found advertising to be a highly capable avenue of com-
munication, prompting its continued deployment as part
of the institution’s overall strategy for audience engage-
ment. Deployment justifications can be numerous, with
these being dependent on the needs and desires of given
healthcare organizations, but in Willis-Knighton Health
System’s experience, three particular characteristics
Fig. 2 Billboard advertisements promoting Willis-Knighton Health System’s“Healthcare Heroes”campaign
Elrod and Fortenberry BMC Health Services Research 2020, 20(Suppl 1):818 Page 4 of 8
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
serve as primary motivations for the establishment’s use
of advertising. These characteristics are as follows.
High performance
Advertising is an age-old communicative method, argu-
ably dating back in primitive form to the earliest days of
trade. Evolving continually, its modern day proliferation
is undeniable, evidenced by simple exposure to and ob-
servation of most any commercial environment. Thanks
to many decades of scholarly attention, the medium of
communication has been studied extensively, with find-
ings routinely confirming its ability to effectively engage
audiences. Further, its extensive and continued use by
business and industry provides additional validation of
the effectiveness of advertising [9,14,22,23,29]. Willis-
Knighton Health System’s own experiences, some of
which have been published in the scholarly literature [9,
15,16,30], support accounts attesting to the prowess of
advertising to generate awareness and convey informa-
tion effectively to current and prospective customers,
giving advertising a firm place in the institution’s com-
munications arsenal.
Significant control
Advertising, as a paid medium of communication, is
largely under the control of the advertising entity, per-
mitting the advertiser to determine creative treatment,
timing and frequency of promotion, and other attributes
of given advertisements. This stands in contrast to pub-
lic relations efforts which rely on press releases being ac-
cepted for presentation by media outlets, something
which offers no guarantees of circulation and, even if
carried, intended stories may not be communicated as
desired. Ultimately, advertising, courtesy of paid place-
ments, provides assurances that messages will be deliv-
ered as intended to desired audiences on desired
timetables [15,22,23,29]. As noted earlier, this particu-
lar attribute served as the primary impetus for Willis-
Knighton Health System’s early embracement of adver-
tising [14,15].
Exceptional variety
Advertising is available in a variety of formats—print,
electronic, and outdoor, with multiple communicative
avenues within these broad categories—allowing adver-
tising entities to select routes deemed most capable of
reaching sought audiences. This extensive variety also
permits a wide range of creative treatments and informa-
tion conveyance options, affording flexibility in message
assembly and presentation, yielding practically infinite
opportunities for developing advertisements specifically
tailored to attract and impact desired groups [7,15,22–
24,29].
Limitations
Despite its many attributes, contexts of use, applications,
and the like, advertising carries a range of limitations
which must be factored into any decision regarding its
deployment. These limitations are as follows.
High cost
As advertising entails the paid use of mass media, obvi-
ously, costs are involved with its deployment. Such ex-
penses can be significant, with costs generally rising as
audience exposures increase. Generally, advertisements
placed in larger markets are pricier than those placed in
smaller markets, given audience size differences [8,22,
23,29]. Even in particular markets, pricing variation typ-
ically exists when circulation differs between placements.
A billboard advertisement situated on a roadway with a
low traffic count, for example, will usually cost less than
an equivalently-sized one located on a heavily-traveled
route in a given city. But beyond the quantity of individ-
uals exposed to a given advertisement (i.e., reach), adver-
tising impact is also influenced by the number of times
individuals are exposed to the associated advertisement
(i.e., frequency), with this also acting to increase adver-
tising expenditures [7,8]. Despite associated costs, ad-
vertising should be considered to be an investment and,
with proper planning and implementation to ensure that
prudent advertising decisions are made, generating a de-
sired return on investment is entirely possible.
Engagement constraints
Advertising generally is considered to be one-way
communication; the advertiser sends a message to au-
diences via a given channel of communication, but
the audience cannot respond directly via that particu-
lar channel [7,8,12,15,22,23,29]. A television
commercial or billboard advertisement, for example,
can convey a promotional message, but message re-
cipients cannot, in turn, use the given communica-
tions pathway to ask questions, indicate interest, or
forward patronage decisions. (It should be noted that
advertising is sometimes confused with direct market-
ing of which some forms do permit two-way commu-
nication, such as telemarketing, but these pathways
do not meet the technical definition of advertising.)
The unidirectional communication weakness of adver-
tising, however, can be resolved by including response
avenues, such as toll-free telephone numbers, website
addresses, and other response mechanisms in given
promotional messages. This, however, must remain at
the forefront of the minds of those charged with as-
sembling advertisements in order to maximize en-
gagement opportunities.
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Potential for intrusiveness
If well planned and implemented, health services adver-
tising can provide invaluable assistance to target audi-
ences, advancing their awareness of medical offerings,
educating them on healthy practices, and encouraging
them in other positive manners [7,8,14–16]. But occa-
sionally healthcare establishments make poor advertising
decisions, selecting highly disruptive avenues which have
the potential to generate animosity among message re-
cipients. Willis-Knighton Health System is particularly
vigilant in ensuring that media selected, messages con-
veyed, and contexts delivered are as unobtrusive as pos-
sible so as to avoid generating ill will among audiences.
The institution’s extensive use of billboard advertise-
ments illustrates this quite well. Billboards are highly ef-
fective, yet generally free of disruptive influences.
Passersby can choose to consume the information or
simply look away. Contrast this with some Internet ad-
vertisements which overtake web browsers, forcing
viewers to wait until the message concludes or take ac-
tion (e.g., clicking a button to close advertisements) to
get back to their intended pursuit, generating negative
feelings which can be attributed not only to the type of
advertisement, but also the establishments featured in
them. Willis-Knighton Health System has a long-
standing tradition of making media selections which are
respectful of audiences, factoring their tastes and prefer-
ences into each and every promotions decision, some-
thing advised for any healthcare establishment engaged
in advertising.
Operational reflections
Operationally, advertising requires foundational assets
similar to those required by most any intensive
organizational undertaking. These resources include (1)
top leadership support and commitment, (2) financial re-
sources sufficient for funding endeavors, (3) competent
personnel charged with effecting given initiatives, and
(4) formal processes permitting effective planning, im-
plementation, and evaluation of initiatives. As the viabil-
ity of advertising endeavors largely depends on the
availability and adequacy of foundational assets, health-
care establishments must take steps to secure them prior
to engaging in advertising pursuits. Communicative
needs can arise at any time, so health and medical pro-
viders, even those not currently engaged in advertising,
should ensure that capable resource frameworks are de-
veloped and available on demand. With these resources
in place, the stage is set to effect advertising proficiently,
generating desired communications utility that fosters
interest and attention on the part of target audiences,
leading to all-important exchange, and potentially, long-
term loyalty. Willis-Knighton Health System’s leader-
ship, well known for pursuing innovations [31], initiated
the establishment’s foray into advertising, with this en-
suring the availability of foundational resources. Indeed,
if top leadership support and commitment can be ac-
quired, procurement of the remaining resources required
for advertising success becomes entirely possible.
Beyond securing foundational resources and following
the advisories presented elsewhere in this article, oper-
ationally Willis-Knighton Health System recommends
the use of triangulation to ascertain advertising value.
Advertising, of course, is a means to an end, with its goal
being to generate some form of desired action on the
part of target audiences. That said, the ultimate question
emerging from a healthcare organization’s associated
pursuits is whether its given advertisements actually de-
livered value (i.e., “Did our ads work?”). This might ap-
pear to be a problem-free inquiry, but determining
advertising return on investment with any degree of cer-
tainty actually is quite difficult [32,33]. This is due to
the fact that many externalities exist which influence pa-
tronage decisions.
Assume that an urgent care center decided to initiate
a 1-month advertising campaign and, by the month’s
conclusion, observed a 10% increase in patient volume.
The advertising campaign might have been the source of
the increase, but other environmental circumstances,
too, could have played a role. Suppose the urgent care
center’s top competitor happened to be located on a
roadway that was being widened at the time, creating ac-
cess difficulties for patients. Suppose a sporting venue
near the center was hosting a major event, drawing pop-
ulations from outside of the market, some of whom
might have had urgent care needs and patronized the
center simply due to its convenience. Suppose a highly-
regarded physician had been hired by the center at the
advertising campaign’s initiation and immediately began
drawing his clientele, bolstering volume, accordingly.
Such events and occurrences obviously hardship adver-
tising performance assessments. Even direct inquiries
forwarded to patients querying them on advertising im-
pact can be unreliable due to mistakes, memory lapses,
and other distortions leading to inaccuracies. Difficulties
in ascertaining advertising effectiveness prompted
Willis-Knighton Health System very early in its associ-
ated endeavors to adopt an approach best described as
triangulation, whereby a number of metrics are studied,
giving indications of advertising performance.
In the case of the urgent care center promoting its ser-
vices, in order to assess advertising impact, the establish-
ment might, for example, monitor telephone, email, and
in-person inquiries, assessing volume and asking parties
how they heard about the center. The same could be
done for actual patient encounters. Further, mechanisms
could be planted within advertisements which could help
determine campaign effectiveness. For example, a
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particular telephone number could be featured in adver-
tisements—one unique to the given campaign and un-
used for other purposes—giving reasonable assurances
that those inquiring via that telephone number had been
exposed to the advertising message. Similarly, audiences
could be prompted by given advertisements to take a
particular action revealing their exposure (e.g., “Be sure
to mention this ad when you make your appointment!”
or “Mention this ad when you visit to receive a free
gift!”). Further insights could be achieved by conducting
a community survey, assessing degree of awareness of
the center, providing yet another indication of the power
of the noted advertising campaign. Importantly, the cen-
ter’s personnel, especially its leadership, must carefully
monitor the environment in an effort to detect external-
ities which might impact metrics, warranting their con-
sideration when evaluating advertising performance.
These and similar mechanisms can shed significant light
on advertising effectiveness, helping to ascertain value,
justify expenditures, and bolster knowledge which can
help improve future advertising campaigns.
Triangulation indeed affords Willis-Knighton Health
System with valuable intelligence, permitting access to a
range of indicators that aid in determining the return on
investment generated by its advertising. This approach
also carries another benefit that should not be over-
looked. Beyond providing indicators of effectiveness at
the conclusion of campaigns, triangulation, courtesy of
active monitoring, can be used to assess advertising ef-
fectiveness in real-time, as campaigns progress. This is
especially helpful for lengthy campaigns running over
many months. If active advertising campaigns are found
to be successfully delivering value, they can be contin-
ued. If not, the campaigns can be modified in an effort
to elevate performance to desired levels. Active monitor-
ing, coupled with expedient alterations, when and where
warranted, can effectively diminish the prospects of real-
izing failed campaigns. Mastery of triangulation goes
hand-in-hand with mastery of advertising.
Conclusions
Advertising, if well devised and deployed, offers health-
care providers opportunities to dramatically improve
their fortunes by successfully engaging current and pro-
spective patients, hastening exchange and building vital
market share. As such, health and medical establish-
ments must strive to develop proficiencies in using ad-
vertising, something especially important, given the
competitive intensity which characterizes the health ser-
vices industry. Beyond intensive study of advertising and
experience gained through its deployment, healthcare
providers can bolster their advertising skills and abilities
by tapping into the experiences of other healthcare pro-
viders, permitting insights which might potentially be
incorporated into communicative pathways. This par-
ticular account shed light on the advertising operations
of Willis-Knighton Health System, supplying food for
thought for the advancement of advertising acumen.
Acknowledgments
A special note of thanks is extended to Marilyn Joiner, Darrell Rebouche,
Mary Jane Ward, Nancy Wilburn, and the greater Willis-Knighton Health Sys-
tem family for their helpful assistance throughout the development and pub-
lication of this article.
About this supplement
This article has been published as part of BMC Health Services Research
Volume 20 Supplement 1, 2020: Marketing communications in health and
medicine: perspectives from Willis-Knighton Health System. The full contents
of the supplement are available online at http://bmchealthservres.biomed-
central.com/articles/supplements/volume-20-supplement-1.
Authors’contributions
The authors jointly developed the submitted manuscript, with each
performing critical roles from early conceptualization through to the
production of the full manuscript. The manuscript resulted from a
collaborative effort. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Authors’information
JKE is President and Chief Executive Officer of Shreveport, Louisiana-based
Willis-Knighton Health System, the region’s largest provider of healthcare ser-
vices. With over 55 years of service at the helm of the institution, JKE is
America’s longest-tenured hospital administrator. A fellow in the American
College of Healthcare Executives and honoree as a Louisiana Legend by
Friends of Louisiana Public Broadcasting, he holds a bachelor’s degree in
business administration from Baylor University, a master’s degree in hospital
administration from Washington University School of Medicine, and an hon-
orary doctorate of science and humane letters from Northwestern State Uni-
versity of Louisiana. He is the author of Breadcrumbs to Cheesecake, a book
which chronicles the history of Willis-Knighton Health System.
JLF Jr. is Chair of the James K. Elrod Department of Health Administration,
James K. Elrod Professor of Health Administration, and Professor of Marketing
in the College of Business at LSU Shreveport where he teaches a variety of
courses in both health administration and marketing. He holds a BBA in
marketing from the University of Mississippi; an MBA from Mississippi
College; a PhD in public administration and public policy, with
concentrations in health administration, human resource management, and
organization theory, from Auburn University; and a PhD in business
administration, with a major in marketing, from the University of Manchester
in the United Kingdom. He is the author of six books, including Health Care
Marketing: Tools and Techniques, 3rd Edition, published by Jones and Bartlett
Learning. JLF Jr. also serves as Vice President of Marketing Strategy and
Planning at Willis-Knighton Health System.
Funding
Article processing charges were funded by Willis-Knighton Health System.
Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent for publication
Figures 1 and 2 are published with permission of Willis-Knighton Health
System. All required approvals for publication were obtained.
Competing interests
JKE and JLF Jr. are both employed with Willis-Knighton Health System.
Elrod and Fortenberry BMC Health Services Research 2020, 20(Suppl 1):818 Page 7 of 8
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