Leading Crisis Communications Firm CommCore Presented at the 2019 Safe at Work: Preventing Violence in Virginia’s Hospitals
(Washington, DC, May 29, 2019)— “It’s not just how your hospital handles operations, it’s your reputation”, said CommCore CEO, Andy Gilman at the 2019 Safe at Work: Preventing Violence in Virginia’s Hospitals event in Virginia.
Gilman led a strategic workshop during the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association Foundation’s program discussing crisis communications, and facilitated a PressureTest™ crisis simulation. He emphasized to the healthcare professionals that hospitals need to make crisis communications management a top priority because the next crisis is likely just around the corner. “Unfortunately, bad news travels at the speed of light in the age of social media and citizen journalists. This can impact your hospital’s brand and reputation,” Gilman said.
Gilman stressed that preparation begins with a robust crisis communications plan. Conducting crisis drills will help test the effectiveness of the plan and improve the speed and efficiency of the hospital’s crisis team, he said.
To illustrate how a crisis goes viral, Gilman conducted CommCore’s signature PressureTest™ simulation as profiled in The New York Times. As part of the simulation, attendees worked in a compressed, real-time environment, responding to a series of cascading events stemming from an incident that went viral on social media. The drill demonstrated how quickly an incident can become a public event and how it can negatively impact the reputation of a company or organization with its employees, patients, families and other stakeholders.
“There is no shortcut for preparation,” said Gilman. “The best way for an organization to emerge from a crisis with its reputation intact is to plan, practice, and pursue a tactical approach to the inevitable crisis.”
“We strive to provide timely and impactful educational programming for Virginia’s health care workforce. Unfortunately, violence in the workplace is much more prevalent in health care than in other industries, so we knew this topic would resonate with our audience,” said Tracey A. van Marcke, VHHA Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer.
About VHHA Foundation’s Safe at Work Event:
Violence against health care workers is a far more common occurrence than is often reported. Workplace violence is not merely the violent events that make the news; it is also the everyday occurrences, such as verbal abuse, that are often overlooked. These situations can result in serious injuries to both employees and patients, decreased cultural morale and high turnover rates.
VHHA and colleagues from around Virginia discuss the importance of creating a culture of safety that prevents violence in the workplace and protects health care workers. Speakers will discuss risk factors, de-escalation, and violence mitigation techniques that help hospitals protect all employees from harm. Attendees engage in active discussion of real world examples and benefit from the healthcare, regulatory, and law enforcement perspectives.
About CommCore:
CommCore Consulting Group has been ranked as one of the Observer’s “PR Power 50” agencies for its work as a crisis communications firm. The firm was also included in the Washington Business Journal’s 2019 Book of Lists as a top PR firm. These honors follow recent in-depth coverage of CommCore’s PressureTest™ crisis simulations in the New York Times and on National Public Radio. CommCore Consulting Group is a privately held specialty communications firm serving businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations around the world. The company specializes in strategic and tactical communications development and implementation across all industry sectors, organizational crisis planning and response, executive media and presentation training, message development, and internal communications skills development. CommCore is led by its president and CEO, Andrew D. Gilman – a lawyer, award-winning journalist, and co-author of the best-selling book Get to The Point. CommCore is headquartered in Washington D.C., and has offices in New York City, Los Angeles, and Dallas.
For more information about CommCore Consulting please call Samantha Cohen at 202-659-4177 or visit www.commcoreconsulting.com.