It is important to publicize and promote your activities within the healthcare setting ahead of time. This allows outpatients to plan their scheduled treatments according to the activities, patients and family members to participate, as well as notify the medical staff that activities outside of their regular schedule will be taking place. No one likes a surprise!

We recommend the following promotional plan:

1. Print one or two posters highlighting your events that can be displayed all year in key areas within the hospital
2. Print several posters to display in key areas for promoting each of your public events. This should be somewhat different from your main posters to attract new attention
3. Print approximately 150 flyers or invitations to distribute (utilizing your event volunteers) to patients and staff over a week or several days previous to each patient care area event
4. Work with your PR department previous to each residency on a press release to be distributed locally, regionally, or nationally (as appropriate). Work to find a particular angle or topic of interest related to each residency. Partners should coordinate so that both the hospital’s and presenter’s PR people are not duplicating efforts (and annoying the press)
5. Work with food services to put a small event card on every patient’s breakfast tray. The small cards can also be used for autographs during and after the event.
6. Use staff e-mail, newsletters or other internal publications to heighten awareness of your events.

Photographs, Releases, and Other 

When documenting activities with photos or videos, it is extremely important to familiarize yourself with HIPAA laws related to patient privacy. More information can be found at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy.

Work closely with the healthcare PR department on guidelines of the institution related to photography. Your institution may require that each patient also sign your own PR/Media Release from; please review the forms with your PR department well in advance of your first event.