"We Treat Heart Attacks 33% Faster"

The BBQ Pit
1

There is billboard ad in the Twin Cities for a local hospital that is driving me nuts - “We Treat Heart Attacks 33% Faster.”

  1. Faster than what? 33% faster is meaningless unless you let me know what. We treat heart attacks 33% faster than if I call my Family Doctor? Than if I get treated by the gibbons at the zoo? Than if I go to the county hospital emergency room on a Saturday night? What?

  2. What are the other numbers? Mean time? Median? SD? How are you measuring? What’s your sample size? Stats are lousy for a billboard - cause they are MEANINGLESS without knowing the shape of the data.

  3. What are you trying to accomplish? If I’m having a heart attack, I though the idea was to go to the first hospital available. Is 33% worth the drive time it will take to get to your hospital? Do people having heart attacks really choose the hospital they are going to? “Gee, I’m having a heart attack, Mayo is only a 2 hour drive from the Twin Cities…Johns Hopkins has a good reputation, maybe I should fly out to Boston.” Are you really trying to get people who are in the middle of a heart attack to make a hospital choice?

  4. So what? Does 33% faster give me a better outcome? Does this correlate to some heart attack survival rate that is better than your competition?

  5. Are people really this stupid? Stupid enough to be swayed by this ad? Stupid enough to put it up in the first place?

I hate stupid advertising…

The Mall of America has another one up on the St. Paul side of the river : “People come from Japan and you won’t even cross the river.” For two weeks I thought won’t meant “don’t have to” and decided the ad agency didn’t know geography. Then my husband explained they were using won’t to mean “unwilling to.” A light went on. Guess what guys, a good ad should be a little clearer. And I’m not sure that an ad that says “People come from Japan and you are too darn stubborn to cross the river” is really making me want to visit the mall.

Well, at least they didn’t use an apostrophe to indicate a plural.

2

Well, one of the hospitals in Lexington was always advertising about their heart attack care, but it made a little more sense in their case. It was about 3 blocks from the UK Med Center, and there were two more hospitals within a mile or two. Going to one of them wouldn’t have added more than 3-5 minutes over going to any of the other three, usually.

3

Baltimore

4

How about they save 33% more people. That would impress me.

5

We’ve got a hospital that has similarly annoying billboards. Each one features a local celeb and has the caption, “My doctor gave me a choice.” :confused: WTF? Your doctor gave you a choice? A choice between what? And why was this choice so important? And how do I know that your doctor isn’t a quack?

6

Thanks december, Baltimore.

(Always get that one wrong.)

7

You might want to try to get a doctor who practices at that hospital, or an insurance company who will pay for that hospital, though, if you are at risk for a heart attack (Or move nearby, if you’re really worried.) Maybe you do get some choice–especially in the Twin Cities, where there are lots of hospitals. I’d rather not wrestle with the HMO if I can help it, even if it is an emergency!

I think they’re just trying to get their name out there. You might not be having a heart attack, but you might need something else, and that name will stick in the back of your mind as a “good hospital”. Yeah, I think that actually works, sometimes.

They might also mean that they treat heart attacks 33% faster than they used to, or something like that. The health care industry likes to pat itself on the back a bit.

BTW, what hospital is it for? I haven’t seen the billboard.

The MOA billboard was clear to me. However, being an East Banker myself, I say “Feh”. I like the one that says, “Bring your relatives and ditch them.” I wish I could…being the “tour guide” and always, always going there is a bit annoying.

8

Last place I lived (Houston), there was a hospital doing a promotion around a theme that went something like, “The people important to you deserve Our Lady Of Purple Hearts”.

I always thought there should be a counter-ad: “And if it’s just the in-laws, bus 'em over to Hermann.” :smiley: