Brand new feeling

By Jimmy LaRoue

The News Virginian

FISHERSVILLE – The Augusta Medical Center unveiled a new name and logo Wednesday, accelerating an evolving push to elevate its brand and market presence.

AMC now will be known as Augusta Health, its familiar logo with the acronym in blue block letters giving way to the word “Augusta” in bright red script and “health” in all caps and charcoal gray. The design soon will appear on everything from staff name tags to billboards to Augusta’s 50-vehicle fleet of ambulances, buses and vans.

A health fair Saturday at the hospital will represent the official launch of the branding initiative. The switch comes 15 years after AMC opened, ending a pitched battle over the consolidation of community hospitals in Waynesboro and Staunton.

Since then, AMC, with more than 255 beds and serving a regional population of more than 200,000 people, has developed a reputation as one of the South Atlantic’s leading regional hospitals.

The rebranding, Augusta CEO Mary Mannix said, represents “where we’re headed as a health care system. ... We’re more proactive in our services, we have more accessibility.”

The “more” theme pulses through an advertising campaign tagged to the logo launch, billing Augusta as providing “more of the services this growing community needs. More technology. More specialists. More physicians. More convenience. More care for our community.”

And the hospital arguably has been more ambitious in recent months than at any time since its opening.

Two moves in the spring were attention-grabbers, particularly at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville.

AMC announced plans in March to hire three cardiologists to perform interventional procedures previously handled by a U.Va. interventional cardiologist.

“It would have been our preference that Augusta Medical Center not change that arrangement, but they have the right to do so, and they exercised the rights that they have,” said Larry Fitzgerald, chief financial and business development officer at the U.Va. Medical Center.

Also in March, AMC announced plans to open an internal medicine practice in Crozet, its first office in western Albemarle County.

Fitzgerald said Crozet and Albemarle County in general are clearly parts of U.Va.’s primary service area, which is defined in the industry as the area providing 50 percent of a center’s patients.

U.Va. has had its own facility in Crozet for about 18 months.

More outposts like AMC’s at Old Trail Village in Crozet appear to be coming. In January, AMC formed the Augusta Medical Group, or AMG, made up of 41 specialty physicians whose ranks officials plan to increase dramatically, perhaps by more than double, over the next five years.

Mannix declined to say precisely how many more physicians might be hired under the medical group but a classified job advertisement posted by the hospital at MedOpportunities.com said, “AMG plans new locations in outlying areas with the addition of over 50 additional physicians by 2014.”

Part of the hospital’s market push includes establishing that Augusta’s reach is longer than some people may recognize, said Kathleen Heatwole, vice president of planning and development.

“There’s a misperception out there,” Heatwole said, “that we’re Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County. We have people come here for services from Rockbridge, Bath and Nelson [counties]. There’s quite a wide range of people who feel they’re part of the community we serve.”

Fitzgerald said strategic moves by other health care providers are noticed, but they don’t influence major decisions.

“We have our own strategy,” Fitzgerald said. “We tend to take care of ourselves and do what’s best for ourselves and this academic health center and patients we serve.”

That strategy is also shaped by the U.Va. Medical Center’s mission, which includes treating patients, teaching and research.

Last year, 2,500 patients who live in communities with Shenandoah Valley Zip codes were referred to U.Va.

“These patients recognize that U.Va. is alone in being able to provide a full range of primary and speciality services,” Fitzgerald said. “They’re going to continue to do so.”

Fitzgerald said U.Va. Medical Center has partnerships with many other centers across Virginia. Its current partnerships with Augusta Medical Center include a dialysis center at AMC and oncology services.

Changes such as adding locations and services are one of the reasons that hospitals rebrand, said David Kay, president of Research Dimensions of Boston. He said it’s an opportunity for a hospital that has outgrown its reputation to increase and enhance its profile in the general public and among medical professionals and current and potential donors.  It’s a way, he said, for the hospital to proclaim that it’s better than what people know it to be.

“I would assume that changing the name is just part of what they’re doing,” Kay said. “I would assume that there’s a whole ad campaign with it, a whole fundraising campaign, a new PR campaign.”

The change from Augusta Medical Center to Augusta Health, Kay said, reflects the idea that “health is broader.”

That thinking also is echoed by Augusta officials.

“The new name, Augusta Health, signifies that we have grown to be much more than just Augusta Medical Center,” Augusta Marketing Director Vicki Kirby said. “We have physician practices, outpatient centers, home care services, fitness and wellness services – a full range of programs and services.”

With more than 1,000 employees, AMC is the largest employer in Augusta County and one of the largest in the region.

HealthGrades, an independent health care ratings organization, rates AMC as a distinguished hospital for clinical excellence. AMC is just one of two hospitals of its size to hold a Moody’s A1 rating, signifying its high level of credit worthiness. 

McGregor McCance of The Daily Progress (Charlottesville) contributed to this story.