Nick Ragone, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Ascension, was named to The Holmes Report 2017 Influence 100, which recognizes the most important and influential in-house communicators from around the world.
“In addition to providing counsel to the CEO, he has led the re-branding of the entire system, transformed the marketing department with a new digital focus, streamlined agency relationships and launched the first ever national advertising campaign around Ascension’s Veteran’s Choice program,” Holmes Report says. “In addition, Ragone’s role focuses on defining and strengthening the Ascension brand, implementing a robust thought leadership plan, and developing a corporate social responsibility platform.”
Nick recently penned an article for Fierce Healthcare about how Ascension is embracing the future of healthcare marketing.
“As we look to the future of healthcare marketing, the most notable transformation is the expansion of consumer options. Now more than ever, consumers have instant access to unlimited information about their choices, which heightens their expectations of us and our providers,” he says. “As part of a national healthcare organization, Ascension is collaborating across our sites of care to provide responsive solutions and exceed our consumers’ expectations.”
Ascension’s marketing efforts are supported by the creation of an integrated Marketing and Communications Ministry-wide Function, Nick says.
“We have come together as one marketing community to support our clinical and operational integration. Throughout our One Ascension journey, we are sharing best practices across our markets, and strengthening our brand connection and awareness nationwide,” he says. “We’ve implemented one CRM [customer relationship management] tool across all of our systems, and we’re in the process of redesigning our websites on one content management platform. This consolidation of resources creates a more consistent experience for users accessing our web entry points and allows for uniform data analysis.”
