How a health system’s brand journalism site nearly doubles traffic yearly

ParentSavvy.com doesn’t have any health-system branding, yet it attracts new patients and publicity for Nebraska Methodist Health System at a record rate. Here are its secrets.

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About four years ago, Nebraska Methodist Health System opened a specialty women’s hospital in Omaha.

Although the hospital delivers about 4,700 babies a year—that’s more than 10 newborns a day—Methodist Health wasn’t retaining as many of those babies as patients as it had hoped.

“There is a lot of competition in pediatrics and family medicine,” says Sue Klein, manager of interactive strategy and production services at Nebraska Methodist Health System. “We wanted to be sure, as the leader in having births in the area … that we were retaining as many of those young patients and families into our primary care system as possible.”

That’s why Klein and her team created ParentSavvy.com, Methodist Health System’s brand journalism site, which educates families on parenting and children’s health. One of ParentSavvy’s primary goals is to encourage new parents to choose a Methodist Health pediatrician.

ParentSavvy, however, has almost no Methodist Health branding.

How can a website with no hospital logo, links or even colors bring in more patients (and fly with senior leaders)? It follows a simple formula:

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