Hospitals’ Corporate Communication Initiatives during the Covid-19 Outbreak: Experiences, Challenges and Future Opportunities

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic led hospitals to work differently with regards to legal procedures, eHealth services. etc., and brought a changing and fluctuating health care environment that affected communication relations among clinicians, patients, and families. These organizations were also forced to make their corporate communication initiatives more efficient and interact with stakeholders differently, especially with patients and media companies. This paper aims to better understand what were the main corporate communication initiatives implemented by hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic. We show that the most important communication initiatives implemented by hospitals during the Covid-19 outbreak were related to the following main areas: a) professional management of corporate communication, b) transparency, c) human values, d) hospital’s brand, and e) online corporate communication. During the pandemic, there was a lack of professional corporate communication in hospitals, as well as the need to execute more than merely conservative communication strategies. There is a strong need to professionalize corporate communication efforts in hospitals.