Selected Work · Healthcare Marketing

Service line growth and institutional storytelling across Southern California hospital systems.

Eighteen years leading marketing at UC Irvine Health, Tenet Health Pacific Coast, and Lakewood Regional Medical Center — driving patient acquisition, physician engagement, and brand transitions through integrated multi-channel campaigns.

Anaheim, CA · phoustonnow@gmail.com · (949) 355-0193 · LinkedIn
25%
Lift in NRC Health brand awareness
for UC Irvine Health Lakewood
53%
YoY increase in ER leads,
714 conversions in a single year
$150K+
In attributed revenue from
tracked service-line event program
18yrs
Hospital system and
physician-network marketing

About

A healthcare marketer who thinks in funnels, campaigns, and filled rooms.

I lead integrated marketing for hospital systems — brand, service line, digital, print, events, and physician engagement. My work sits at the intersection of measurable campaign performance and the kind of institutional storytelling that earns trust with physicians, administrators, and the patients they serve.

Most recently I led the Community Network awareness campaign for UC Irvine Health's four newly-acquired community hospitals in Orange County. Before that, I spent eight years running service line and community marketing at Tenet Health Pacific Coast's Lakewood campus, and nearly a decade before that as Business Development Manager building physician referral networks at Lakewood Regional Medical Center. Four selected case studies below.

Case 01 · Recent

UC Irvine Health Community Network — Brand Transition & Awareness Campaign

Leading the rebrand and market-facing awareness program for four community hospitals newly acquired by UC Irvine Health — resulting in a 25% lift in brand awareness and Top 3 consumer target ranking.

Role
Led strategy & execution
Scope
4 hospitals, 2 counties
Channels
Print, digital, social, in-facility
Measurement
NRC Health quarterly tracking
UCI Health Will See You Now framed poster installed in clinical environment featuring four-hospital Community Network
"UCI Health will see you now" — hero creative installed in facility. Naming all four Community Network hospitals: Fountain Valley, Lakewood, Los Alamitos, and Placentia Linda.

The Challenge

UC Irvine Health acquired four community hospitals from Tenet Healthcare: Fountain Valley, Lakewood, Los Alamitos, and Placentia Linda. Each facility needed to be rebranded under UC Irvine Health's architecture, and the newly-unified Community Network had to be introduced to Orange County consumers, existing patients at those facilities, and the hyperlocal populations surrounding each hospital — three distinct audiences, all at once.

The Approach

I led a two-phase campaign architecture: first, a pure brand-awareness push to seed the new name in-market; second, an audience-segmented awareness campaign with creative tailored to how each audience would encounter UC Irvine Health differently.

  • General Orange County consumers — aspirational lifestyle imagery with the headline "The best care. Right in your community."
  • Existing UC Irvine Health patients — warmer, more relational creative with "High-quality care. Here at home."
  • Hyperlocal audiences near each of the four facilities — active-lifestyle imagery and community-anchored copy with "High-quality care. Close to home."

Audience-Segmented Creative

UCI Health print creative — general OC audience, woman hiker
General OC · Creative 1
UCI Health print creative — general OC audience, woman cyclist
General OC · Creative 2
UCI Health print creative — patient audience, man portrait
UCI patients
UCI Health hyperlocal creative — woman playing pickleball
Hyperlocal · Placentia Linda

Digital Execution

Digital display and paid social carried the brand story across the same OC/LA market. Campaign reach was tracked alongside the print mix, with hyperlocal audience segmentation mirroring the four-hospital footprint.

UCI Health Community Network digital campaign performance — placeholder
Digital campaign execution & reach
UCI Health Community Network digital channel breakdown — placeholder
Channel mix & deployment
UCI Health Community Network digital engagement — placeholder
Engagement & audience performance

Print Execution

Fourteen print publications across the OC/LA market mix. Included the Orange County Register, Long Beach Press Telegram, LA Times/OC, and the Grunion Gazette for regional reach, plus hyperlocal-focused community publications including Leisure World Weekly, Rossmore Living, Yorba Linda Neighbors, and Lakewood Community News.

Orange County Register Long Beach Press Telegram LA Times/OC Grunion Gazette Leisure World Weekly Rossmore Living Yorba Linda Neighbors Lakewood Community News Fountain Valley Living +5 more

In-Facility Activation

UCI Health welcomes you — framed poster installed in clinical environment for internal staff audience
Staff-facing welcome — installed in clinical environments to reinforce the integration story with employees.
UCI Health Will See You Now retractable pull-up banner for events and lobby deployment
Retractable banner — freestanding pull-up for events, lobbies, and community activations.
UCI Health typographic teaser poster — Will See You Now on brand blue background
Typographic teaser — low-cost, rapid-deployment piece used to seed the tagline ahead of the full creative rollout.

Results

25%
Lift in NRC Health brand awareness tracking across Community Network markets.
Top 3
Moved into the Top 3 consumer target tier in the Lakewood market region.
#2
Trending toward No. 2 market ranking for FY25 at time of measurement.

Quarterly NRC Health brand tracking — awareness, recall, image, and preference — supplemented by on-demand consumer insights surveys. Measured across the full Community Network footprint.

Case 02

Medicare Advantage — Multi-Hospital Regional Acquisition Campaign

A coordinated twelve-event community seminar program across four OC/LA hospitals during Medicare Open Enrollment, supported by integrated multi-channel marketing and a full attribution funnel.

Role
Regional marketing lead
Scope
4 hospitals, 12 events
Channels
Direct mail, print, email, social, phone
Window
Oct 15 – Dec 6, AEP
Medicare workshop 24x36 poster for Lakewood Regional — community education program
Lakewood Regional Medicare workshop 24×36 print execution — community-facing creative driving registration to the in-facility seminar series.

The Challenge

Medicare Annual Enrollment Period (October 15 – December 7) is the most competitive window of the year for hospital systems with Medicare Advantage partnerships. Every major local system — Memorial Care, St. Joseph, and others — runs its own education programming. We needed to convert AEP activity into new aligned-plan enrollments across four Tenet facilities in two counties.

The Approach

I designed and coordinated a unified twelve-event community seminar program across four hospitals — Fountain Valley, Lakewood Regional, Placentia-Linda, and Los Alamitos — supported by an integrated multi-channel campaign. Each event featured a certified independent insurance broker for trust and no-pressure enrollment guidance, with co-located appointment scheduling.

Direct Mail E-Newsletter Email Print (OC Register, Grunion Gazette, Golden Rain News, FV Living) Boosted Social In-Facility Digital Screens Outbound Phone Senior Centers · Chambers · Libraries

The Funnel

337 Marketing Responders 221 Seminar Attendees 71 Appointment Requests 19 Appointments Set 7 Enrollments Reported at 11 of 12 events completed. Final event pending at time of deck.

32% of event attendees requested an appointment with the enrollment broker on site — a conversion rate well above industry norms for community health education.

Results

4
Hospitals coordinated in a single unified Medicare Advantage campaign across Orange County and greater Los Angeles.
221
Seminar attendees across eleven completed events — consistent audience engagement across four market regions.
32%
Attendee-to-appointment conversion rate, with projected multi-million-dollar lifetime patient value against six-figure campaign investment.

Full funnel tracked attendee through appointment through enrollment. Reported to regional hospital leadership with quarterly executive summary.

Case 03 · Multi-Year Program

Dinner with a Doctor — Service Line Event Program

A sustained community health education program at Lakewood Regional pairing free dinner seminars with specialist physicians — building community trust, physician visibility, and measurable patient acquisition across multiple service lines.

Role
Program lead · Marketing
Scope
15–20+ events over multi-year span
Service Lines
Urology, Cardiology, Orthopedics, GI, more
Format
Free seminar + dinner + specialist Q&A
Packed Dinner with a Doctor event — Dr. Jonathan Perley presenting on prostate cancer to a full community audience at Lakewood Regional
Dr. Jonathan Perley presenting prostate cancer education to a standing-room community audience. Dinner with a Doctor averaged 50 attendees per session across the program, with standout events pulling well beyond that.

The Challenge

Community hospitals compete for patient trust and service line referrals against larger academic systems in the same market. A brochure cannot build relationships; a packed room with a specialist who answers questions well can. Dinner with a Doctor was our answer to that problem — a sustained program designed to put specialists in front of community members, build trust, and track the work through to actual clinical outcomes.

The Approach

I built the program as a recurring series — consistent format, consistent branding, rotating specialists and topics keyed to service line growth priorities. Free admission, dinner served, moderated by the physician, followed by community Q&A. Paired each event with an integrated marketing push: print posters deployed to waiting rooms and senior centers, direct mail into high-value ZIP codes, email invitations, and digital promotion.

  • Urology — Men's Health Seminar Series with Dr. Jonathan Perley (Low T, BPH, Bladder Control)
  • Orthopedics — Joint and Surgical Interventions with Dr. Prem Ramkumar
  • Cardiology — Heart Disease, Atrial Fibrillation, Peripheral Artery Disease
  • Additional service lines across GI, bariatric surgery, and women's health

Campaign Creative

Men's Health Seminar Series 22x28 poster for Lakewood Regional featuring Dr. Jonathan Perley
Men's Health Seminar Series · 22×28 poster · Deployed across community and clinic venues
Dinner with a Doctor Lecture Series brochure — orthopedic and cardiology events
Dinner with a Doctor Lecture Series · Orthopedics + Cardiology

Results

~50
Average attendance per session across the program; multiple events drew 90+ community members.
$150K+
Marketing-attributed revenue across the tracked Dinner with a Doctor / Dinner with a Surgeon event cohort.
439
Attendees at the flagship Dinner with a Surgeon joint-pain event alone — $141K in attributed revenue from that single session.

Maintained attribution tracking from event attendance through clinical consult and booked procedure — closing the loop that most community health education programs never close.

Case 04 · Multi-Channel Service Line

Joint Replacement Marketing Campaign — Orthopedic Service Line Growth

A cross-channel consumer acquisition campaign for orthopedic surgery across four hospitals, executed in co-marketing partnership with Stryker — pairing sophisticated digital targeting with direct mail, community, and out-of-home to drive physician referrals and surgical patient encounters.

Role
Led strategy & execution
Scope
4 hospitals, 6 months
Partner
Co-marketing with Stryker
Service Line
Orthopedic / Musculoskeletal
Joint Replacement Marketing Campaign brief — channel strategy, creative, and execution summary
Campaign brief — channel architecture, audience strategy, and creative executions across Direct Mail, Paid Search, Geo-fencing, Community Newspapers, Billboards, Video, and Facebook. Co-branded with Stryker.

The Challenge

As patients returned to elective orthopedic procedures post-COVID, competition for joint replacement candidates across Southern California intensified. The window to capture consumers researching joint pain and surgical options was narrow, and each hospital in the four-facility network had its own market dynamics. We needed a unified, data-driven acquisition program that could target high-intent consumers at scale while filling four orthopedic service lines simultaneously.

The Approach

I designed and led a multi-channel consumer acquisition campaign in co-marketing partnership with Stryker, combining sophisticated hyperlocal targeting with traditional awareness media. The strategy paired high-intent digital channels (paid search, geo-fencing, social) with precision direct mail and community-rooted placements to reach consumers who were actively considering joint replacement — or showing the lifestyle signals of those who soon would be.

  • Paid Search — Google campaigns targeting consumers searching for orthopedic treatments and joint pain relief
  • Geo-Fencing Mobile Ads — Five-mile perimeter targeting around Cypress, CA, with demographic and lifestyle-matched audiences
  • Direct Mail — 32,779 postcards to primary service areas, plus 3,780 targeted to self-reported joint pain sufferers
  • Community Newspapers — Weekly placements in Golden Rain News, monthly in Lakewood Community News
  • Out-of-Home — Leisure World shuttle bus billboards to reach a high-relevance 55+ demographic
  • Facebook, Video, and Web — Supporting awareness across brand-safe social and video inventory
Paid Search Geo-Fencing Direct Mail Community Newspapers OOH / Billboards Facebook Video Web

Campaign Funnel & Results

36,559 Hyperlocal Households Reached Direct Mail + Geo-Fenced Mobile 299 Marketing Responses 92 Webinar RSVPs → 55 Lecture Attendees (5-part series) 10 Patient Encounters 6 New Patient Encounters Positive Contribution Margin on New Patient Revenue

Response-to-encounter tracking ran alongside a 573-referral orthopedic physician network pipeline — giving leadership visibility into both consumer-acquired and referral-driven pipeline at the same time.

Results

573
Orthopedic physician referrals across the four-hospital network over the campaign window — inbound pipeline running in parallel with the consumer acquisition funnel.
36K+
Hyperlocal households reached through integrated direct mail and geo-fenced mobile advertising — with 3,780 precision-targeted to self-reported joint pain sufferers.
55
Attendees across a five-part joint replacement webinar series, with a 60% RSVP-to-attendance rate sustained across five consecutive lectures.

Closed-loop attribution maintained from marketing response through patient encounter to new patient revenue, delivering positive contribution margin on the campaign while filling four orthopedic service lines simultaneously.