CASE STUDY
Aligning reputation with reality. Strategic communications for a growing health system.
For more than a dozen years, Formation PR & Brand used sustained media relations to help Western North Carolina — and audiences beyond the region — see the depth of care, expertise and services UNC Health Pardee had grown to provide.
Client
UNC Health Pardee
Services
From county hospital to regional health system.
Founded as a county hospital in 1953, UNC Health Pardee has grown into a regional health system serving five counties through primary care, specialty practices and other clinical services. Its connection to the community remained central as its reach and capabilities expanded.
Pardee had changed. Its public perception had not.
Even as Pardee’s care network and business model evolved, many people still saw the organization through the lens of its county hospital past.
The strategic communications challenge was not simply to generate more coverage. Pardee needed to help the community recognize the range and quality of care now available close to home.
Making Pardee’s evolution visible through people and care.
The story was not only about growth, but about the thought and care behind it.
By highlighting Pardee’s expanded services, new treatments and role in helping people understand their health, Formation’s public relations strategy would show why the system’s evolution mattered to the people it served.
Turning clinical expertise into timely media stories.
Formation worked with Pardee’s subject matter experts and patients to cultivate timely stories for regional, statewide and national media. The work included proactive pitching and press releases, media training and interview preparation, crisis communications, plus tracking and analysis.
Coverage highlighted Pardee’s growing primary care network and specialty practices. It also connected the system’s expertise to immediate community needs, from inpatient youth behavioral health services and early stroke recognition to COVID-19 vaccines and a new Alzheimer’s treatment.
Local expertise reaches a national audience.
A regional TV interview with a Pardee physician about the system becoming the first health care organization in Western North Carolina – and the UNC Health system – to administer a ground-breaking new Alzheimer’s drug aired on 76 additional stations nationwide.
For American Heart Month, a Pardee physician and patient explained why heart attacks can be harder to recognize in women and what symptoms to watch for. That segment aired on 58 additional stations.
Together, those placements carried Pardee’s expertise far beyond the five counties it serves. Closer to home, sustained coverage helped strengthen its profile as a trusted and preferred health care provider in Western North Carolina.
John Bryant, Ed.D. vice president for operations and support services, UNC Health Pardee
Has your organization changed faster than public perception?
Growth does not automatically change the way people see your organization. Strategic public relations can help close that gap — connecting your expertise, evolution and impact to stories that build understanding and trust over time.