On March 14th, 2025, Facility Engagement hosted a peer-to-peer learning session to support Medical Staff Associations (MSAs) with their strategic communications planning.
The webinar started with an overview of the Civility Matters Project from Vernon Jubilee Hospital, then reviewed key principles for strategic communication planning with the Doctors of BC Director of Communications, Nicole Adams, followed by an overview of how these principles will be applied to the Civility Matters Project to both spread and increase engagement in the initiative.
This session aligned with the Doctors of BC strategic goal of increasing the influence of the physician voice as well as a key theme identified through the Facility Engagement Annual Review process, which highlighted communication as a main priority across many MSAs for 2024/2025. It also responded to participant feedback provided at the FE Provincial Summit in April that MSAs were looking for more support around communications planning.
Presentations included:
- Civility Matters: Dr. Yann Brierley from Vernon Jubilee Hospital
- Strategic Communications Planning & Civility Matters – A Case Study: Nicole Adams, Director of Communications, Doctors of BC
Watch: Communications Learning Session
Takeaways
Dr Yann Brierly discussed the issue of incivility in the workplace, particularly in health care settings. He highlighted the problem of microaggressions and daily rudeness, which can lead to job dissatisfaction and negatively impact patient care.
Dr Brierly noted how incivility can lead to a significant loss of cognitive capacity, reduced creativity, and a decrease in confidence, which can result in errors, reduced staffing levels, and increased costs on the system.
He also noted that incivility can have a ripple effect, affecting not only the recipient but also witnesses and that repeated exposure to incivility can lead to increased health conditions and a decrease in immunity.
For more information about the Civility Matters Project that sought to improve civility in the workplace and showed an overall positive impact after a 4-month intervention phase with the ambulatory care unit and perioperative services, read this 60-second story.
Dr Brierly concluded with his next steps of wanting to further expand and engage health care workers and health authority leadership in operationalizing the initiative, of which strategic communication planning will be a key component for success. Nicole Adams, director of communications for Doctors of BC, then took over to discuss strategic communications planning and provided a case study on how to spread civility matters through effective communication.
Nicole Adams started by explaining the fundamentals of strategic communications planning, emphasizing that plans should focus on business objectives rather than specific tactics.
She outlined a structured approach that includes defining business needs, understanding audiences, defining your call to action, responsible parties, available resources, deadlines, and setting measurable objectives using SMART goals, which should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
Nicole then discussed the application of these strategic communication principles to a case study, Civility Matters. The plan aimed to make Civility Matters self-sustaining within Interior Health, with operational objectives such as expanding awareness and recruiting facilitators.
Nicole also highlighted challenges, such as cost and articulating value, and proposed strategies to address them. She emphasized the importance of understanding the audience's needs and value propositions, and the need for measurable objectives. The plan was handed over to Yan and his team for further development and implementation.
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