The Client
White Plains Hospital (WPH), a proud member of Montefiore Einstein, is a leading healthcare provider in Westchester County and hub for advanced care in the Hudson Valley. The Hospital’s mission is to provide exceptional acute and preventive medical care to all people who live in, work in, or visit Westchester County and its surrounding areas.
The Setting
In a competitive Westchester healthcare market, patients seeking orthopedic and spinal care have many leading health systems to choose from, including top New York City facilities.
When WPH approached Market Street Research, they were looking to better align their reputation for orthopedic care and increase patient preference.
Our Approach
To begin, WPH needed to understand patient priorities and how to differentiate from other systems in ways that matter. Specifically, they were interested in uncovering what information patients needed to know about WPH to influence their decision, and how best to reach them.
With these questions in mind, we surveyed 325 area residents. Qualified residents were those who had either seen an orthopedic or spine specialist within the past 5 years (72%), had a scheduled appointment within the next year (6%), or had a compelling reason to believe they would need to see an orthopedic or spine specialist in the next 5 years (23%).
Key Findings
- Provider referrals are a very important part of patient decisions; but research plays a big role too. Overall, most (65%) of those surveyed received a referral and used the provider they were referred to, but 35% either did not receive a referral or did not use the provider they were referred to. Furthermore, nearly 2 in 3 (63%) considered additional sources of information, turning to people and websites they trusted to increase their confidence in the referral
- Most patient decisions about where to seek orthopedic care came down to confidence in the specialist. This held true whether they did their own research or just completely relied on their provider’s referral.
- While most patients who’ve had an orthopedic procedure would use the same specialist in the future, evidence of specialist expertise can change their minds. Over half (52%) would use a different specialist than they did before if they found one who was more specialized or advanced, and the top factor indicating specialist expertise was the number of procedures they had performed that were similar to the respondent’s own. .
The Impact
Our research showed that specialist expertise is a very important part of the patient decision, and many respondents wanted to know about specialist expertise to feel confident in their referral to WPH. So, we recommended WPH lean into their physician’s expertise in new messaging or marketing efforts.
But it also showed that highlighting expertise wasn’t enough to move the needle. In order to differentiate from competitors with a strong brand image for expertise, WPH would need to speak to the human connection between specialized physicians and the patient. This includes leveraging positive patient reviews and insights from real and relatable people who’ve received orthopedic and spinal care from WPH.
Based on our recommendations, WPH Marketing worked with their physicians to identify real-life success stories from patients that highlighted the trusted relationship those patients had built with WPH specialized providers. With these stories, WPH’s team crafted a compelling, testimonial-based and expertise-focused digital and out-of-home campaign, which launched in the start of 2026. In just one month, orthopedic calls went up 8% in comparison to the same timeframe last year, and appointments went up 34%. This suggests the campaign work WPH did was successful in not just building interest but actually motivating action; and improving efficiency in a clear and compelling way.
With a new landing page serving as an evolving hub for short and long testimonials, patients can learn more about the impact WPH physicians and procedures have had on real lives.
Surveys allow us to gather statistically significant, scalable feedback from targeted audiences. This includes email, text, mail-to-web, and phone surveys, which help us engage with harder-to-reach audiences and/or explore culturally and situationally sensitive topics that benefit from a human connection.
To learn more about our survey work and and how conducting them can reveal your own audience needs and perspectives, contact us for a consultation today.