Good Samaritan drops Caritas from name, touts hospitals Brockton ties

The Enterprise of Brockton, Mass.
www.enterprisenews.com
By Kyle Alspach
ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
Posted Mar 19, 2009
BROCKTON — In a new marketing campaign unveiled today, Good Samaritan Medical Center is seeking to emphasize its local ties and distance itself from its parent company.

Good Samaritan and the five other Caritas Christi hospitals in Massachusetts are all dropping Caritas from their names.

That returns the Brockton hospital to the name it had a decade ago — Good Samaritan Medical Center — which is the name most people use for the hospital, said spokeswoman Monique Aleman.

I think it reaffirms how people know us, and the relationships that exist here in the community, Aleman said in an interview with The Enterprise in advance of the official announcement.

The Boston-based Caritas hospital network paid for daily newspaper and online ads, as well as banners that were scheduled to go up today at the six Caritas hospitals with the slogan, Quality to the People.

The hospital network, which is affiliated with the Archdiocese of Boston, started using its new logo in December when it revamped its hospital Web sites, according to Teresa Prego, the vice president of marketing at Caritas Christi.

The new logo still has a cross in it, but its less prominent, located inside an upper-case C. The logo is meant to appear more dynamic while still preserving the hospitals Catholic identity, Aleman said.

The new marketing campaign is an effort to get out the hospitals message that quality health care is available in the community, said interim hospital President Robert Fanning.

The change of the name and logo emphasizes the connection with the community, Fanning said.

In addition, the hospital is rolling out a much more robust Web site with data about how the hospital is performing when it comes to measures such as infections and patient falls, Aleman said.

The whole concept is really reaffirming the work thats been done here for decades, she said.

Today, the hospital planned to send a street team to locations around Brockton to give out free coffee and spread Good Samaritans message. The team also was to distribute 200 free copies of The Enterprise this afternoon, which contain a full-page ad for the hospital.

The brand campaign was developed by Waltham-based Boathouse Group Inc. The community events and branding efforts are being coordinated by The Rice Co., a marketing firm based in Hingham, Good Samaritan officials said.

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