Building Business, Improving Care With Hologic’s Pink Ribbon Facility Marketing Program

Sebasticook Valley Hospital in Pittsfield, Maine, is a small community hospital with a big mission: to be the best small hospital in Maine.
The site is achieving its mission by offering state-of-the-art technology, the highest quality patient care, and exceptional marketing to physicians and patients in the local community.

Patients First
Sebasticook places a high priority on putting the needs of its patients first. So when women in the community began requesting the latest technology in mammography, the hospital listened by replacing its screen-film equipment with a Hologic Selenia digital mammography system in July 2009.
“Digital mammography improved the patient experience in many ways,” said Director of Women’s Health Sandi Delano. “In addition to the technology’s superior image quality, the images are reviewed instantaneously, which enables our mammographers to devote more time to patients to answer questions and educate women on the importance of breast health. With digital we are able to give our patients the education they need and the time they deserve.”
The hospital’s decision to use Hologic’s digital mammography technology was not a difficult one. Sebasticook is part of the Eastern Maine Healthcare System, which had previously conducted an evaluation of the various digital vendors. The whole system was in agreement that Hologic far surpassed the others in terms of quality.
“Hologic’s seamless integration with our existing PACS system and its ImageChecker computer-aided detection have made the transition to digital very easy,” said Henk Jordaan, M.D., the hospital’s medical director of women’s health. “High image quality and the improved imaging of dense breasts have increased our confidence in the interpretations and the quality of our screening program.”
Expanding its Services
At the same time that it was upgrading its mammography equipment, Sebasticook installed a Hologic Discovery C bone densitometer, a complete platform for bone health assessment. This technology provides the fastest scan time and highest precision in the industry.
Now, many of the hospital’s patients are able to come in during their lunch hour and receive both a breast cancer screening and osteoporosis assessment in less than an hour.
“There’s always a challenge when you’re learning a new technology, but Hologic was wonderful. They trained us on the Discovery and the Selenia and also sent an educator to train the technologists on positioning,” said Delano. “Their service and support are phenomenal. Everyone from the service engineers to the staff educators really have gone above and beyond.”
Though digital mammography and the upgraded bone densitometry “Discovery C” are new technologies in the hospital, women at Sebasticook have enjoyed the comfort of the Hologic MammoPad breast cushion for more than eight years. The soft foam cushion covers the surface of the mammography detector, allowing patients to enjoy a more comfortable exam and technologists to achieve better compression and increased tissue acquisition.
“We choose to offer MammoPad to every woman because we feel that our patients’ comfort outweighs the cost, even in these economic times,” Delano said. “Everyone is trying to keep costs down, but
MammoPad makes such a difference to our patients — and patient satisfaction is our priority.”
While many neighboring facilities also offer the cushion, Sebasticook is one of the few that provides the comfort of MammoPad as a standard-of-care. Even after a major capital investment like digital mammography, the hospital saw no reason to sacrifice patient comfort to save money.

Pink Ribbon Program Drives Business Growth
Delano says that in addition to offering the latest in imaging technologies, an important tool for achieving its mission is the Hologic “Pink Ribbon Facility” marketing program. Sebasticook used the program press releases to get coverage in the local newspaper, and a televised news segment with ideas from the program reached many people in the community and surrounding areas, even as far as several hours away.
“We survey all new patients to find out how they heard about us and our technology, and a lot of people say they saw us on the local news,” said Delano.
“One of our goals is to increase volume in our Women’s Health Center for screening mammography and bone densitometry,” said Delano. “Being a Pink Ribbon Facility has helped us toward that goal, and we’ve used the program almost exclusively for our marketing.”
“For some of the materials, we only had to add our logo and phone number to make it ours, and it’s ready to go,” said Delano. “Our marketing team has appreciated the support and quality of the educational materials and media packages.”
The program’s diverse materials support Sebasticook’s efforts to reach the community through a variety of outlets, including open houses, health fairs, presentations to community organizations, and even the hospital’s own golf tournament, which raised $55,000 for the new digital mammography unit.
Evidence of the strength of the Sebasticook marketing campaign is more than just anecdotal. Delano says that in just one month the hospital saw its mammography business grow by 25 percent.

Sebasticook Valley is Only the Beginning
“We want to increase our volume, but also to educate our patients,” Delano said. “We all know that early detection can decrease mortality from breast cancer.”
Delano says there are no plans to slow down after this initial success. The entire staff made the decision to make the marketing campaign an ongoing process – not only to grow the center’s business but also to provide an excellent service to
the community.

This case study was supplied by Hologic.