By the numbers

Data-driven: How consumer research guided the national awareness campaign

Through surveys and focus groups, researchers identified the health-conscious patients who would become the core audience of the campaign.

Laura Selby
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What is a DO? The AOA’s Doctors That DO campaign, which launched in October, aims to answer that question by educating a targeted segment of health care consumers nationwide about osteopathic physicians and their unique approach to medicine.

“Consumers are looking for the type of care DOs provide,” says AOA Trustee William J. Burke, DO, who led a task force of DOs and students who helped shape the campaign. “We just need to help them understand who we are and what we offer.”

Before developing the campaign’s messaging, which emphasizes DOs’ whole-person approach to care, the AOA partnered with Washington, DC-based Edge Research to gain insight into patients’ health values and their baseline awareness of osteopathic medicine. Based on this data, the campaign set its outreach sights on two groups of patients who were especially invested in their health and receptive to learning about DOs.

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Measuring awareness

The data-gathering process began with eight focus groups in three U.S. cities, followed by a national survey of approximately 1,000 patients with health insurance. Nearly 8 in 10 survey participants said they had heard of osteopathic physicians. Focus group members also said they were familiar with osteopathic medicine, but many floundered when asked to describe what DOs do.

“Especially among patients who hadn’t seen a DO, there were some incorrect assumptions, such as that DOs have less training than MDs or that they’re practitioners of alternative care,” explains Pam Loeb, a principal at Edge Research. Among survey respondents, nearly one-third had visited a DO; of those patients, roughly one-third had actively sought out an osteopathic physician, she notes.

Targeting key audiences

To identify the best target audiences for the campaign, survey respondents were asked questions about their approach to health care, what they value most and how they spend their leisure time. Researchers then used cluster analysis to group patients into mutually exclusive groups, such as people who are physically active vs. others who are more sedentary. This analysis yielded five separate segments of patients, with two groups singled out as being especially receptive to messaging about osteopathic medicine:

  • “Active seekers,” who made up about 10% of the survey population, are interested in being healthy but may be dealing with health issues such as migraines, asthma or chronic back pain. “Demographically, they’re a little bit younger than the average patient, they’re more ethnically diverse, and they have a slightly higher education level than some of our other segments,” Loeb says.
  • “Health-involved” consumers, who comprised nearly a third of the survey population, are diligent about eating well, exercising and partnering with a physician to improve their health. “When this group learns more about the DO philosophy, they’re very interested, and we see a big shift in how likely they say they are to visit a DO,” Loeb explains.

    • To reach the diverse, health-interested patients from these two segments, the national awareness campaign has appeared in publications such as People magazine, O, Runner’s World, Parents, Parents Latina, Women’s Health, Men’s Health and Yoga Journal. The campaign has also been featured on health-focused websites and at events such as the TCS New York City Marathon health and wellness expo.

10 comments

  1. Ken Klak DO.

    the awareness campaign is great but it emphasizes empathy and not necessarily
    what make us different
    After 40 years of practice I am finally understanding the difference between
    osteopathic technique vs osteopathic management.
    We should go beyond technique and debate
    management beyond somatic dysfunction;
    which may be limiting us.
    Concepts such as tensegity, cytoskeleton, and others are changing how we can look at what we do

    Reply

  2. Bob

    After spending well over 100k on an education and paying mandatory dues to the AOA for almost 20 years, people still have no idea what I do. Something isn’t right.

    Reply

  3. Jon Spyridakis DO

    Is the campaign even going on? Like many, I first seen and heard about this during the Scientific Assembly in Orlando. I have not seen any ad or the video since. I’ve asked my wife and friends and non are aware. I should be thankful in that the video made “pain” its own disease rather than a symptom. Where was this when all the hospitals bearing “Osteopathic” were absorbed into health systems and renamed?

    Reply

    1. Amy Bolivar, AOA Assistant Director, Content Marketing

      Thanks for the comment, Dr. Spyridakis. We’re currently in the first phase of a three-year brand awareness campaign designed to educate consumers about osteopathic medicine when and where they’re looking for health information. The campaign is primarily digital, with banner ads and pre-roll videos running on multiple health-focused websites. There are also print ads that run periodically in national magazines like People, Men’s Health, Runner’s World, O magazine, and more. We’ll be doing limited “out of home” (like billboards) in the coming months as well. You may not have seen the ads yet, since they target people who aren’t familiar with osteopathic medicine yet. The next wave of print ads will be hitting the newsstands in February, so in the next few months–and years–you and consumers will have many more opportunities to see them.

      Reply

  4. Kathy

    #doctorsthatDO Your campain is offensive to all those that work hard in lab and other areas of medicine. To say that we don’t care about our patients is slander and false. We work a hard 24/7 to make sure you get the correct results to help diagnois your patients and you decided to say we don’t help you wth your diagnois. And if our lab results don’t care, then we would give you the wrong results just to mess with you. We don’t, an anyway, put down your career choices and your job; so why do you decide it’s okay to put down (bully) others for making an educated decision to work for the lab. It’s more then working on “machines,” many of us go through hard schooling and training to get a job for shit pay and no respect just because WE CARE FOR OUR PATIENTS and someone has to do it!

    Reply

    1. Doctors that DO

      Hello Kathy,
      Thank you for sharing your feedback on our Doctors That DO campaign. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness of osteopathic physicians and their whole-person philosophy of care, not diminish the important role of laboratory professionals and other health care providers. All members of the health care delivery team play an important role in providing quality care to patients, both those who directly interact with patients and those who are in labs, running equipment and fulfilling other vital roles.

      DOs are uniquely trained to look at the whole person, considering the latest science and technology as well as lifestyle and environmental factors when assessing a patient’s health. The ads echo how DOs’ holistic approach to health keeps the person—not any one test, scan or treatment—at the center of care delivery.

      Reply

    2. Gale Murkerson

      After working in the laboratory for 26yrs, it’s obvious that you “DO’s” have no idea what we do. If you think you are such superior to all other healthcare professionals, then don’t call the lab when you need Un-cross matched blood, or can figure out why someone is bruising, has a fever that won’t go away, etc. if you think by some logic of your “superior” training and education, that lab test don’t diagnose, you need to go back to school. There is one thing you have made everyone aware of, is exactly how insensitive, ignorant you are to the people that provide you with the most information about the patient. So the next time I see someone who is a DO, I will ask for a REAL doctor, to make sure I’m diagnosed appropriately, not by what you “think”
      Gale Murkerson, BS,MT(ASCP) that is a bachelor degree in medical technology registered by the American Association of Clinical Pathologist.

      Reply

  5. ELIZABETH VULCANO

    Doctors that DOn’t respect the rest of the care TEAM. This campaign has done more to damage how your profession is viewed by Allied Health Professionals a d Nursi g Professionals. Nice canned response.

    Dear Elizabeth:

     

    Thank you for sharing your feedback on our Doctors That DO campaign. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness of osteopathic physicians and their whole-person philosophy of care, not diminish the important role of laboratory professionals and other health care providers. All members of the health care delivery team play an important role in providing quality care to patients, both those who directly interact with patients and those who are in labs, running equipment and fulfilling other vital roles.

     

    DOs are uniquely trained to look at the whole person, considering the latest science and technology as well as lifestyle and environmental factors when assessing a patient’s health. The ads echo how DOs’ holistic approach to health keeps the person—not any one test, scan or treatment—at the center of care delivery.

     

    Again, thank you for your feedback and for the important work you do for patients.

     

    AMERICAN OSTEOPATHIC ASSOCIATION
    142 E. Ontario St.
    Chicago, IL 60611-2864

     

     

    Your Name:

    Elizabeth Vulcano

    Email:

    [email protected]

    Select a Topic:

    General Inquiry

    Message:

    I just saw you Ad campaign and as Medical Laboratory Scientist, ASCP-cm, I have several thoughts on your campaign that is absolutely demeaning a d insulting to millions of Allied Health Professionals and Nursing Professionals who care deeply about patients. We do the work we do day in and day out to help every patient. I care deeply about every patient. I do my job every day knowing that what I do matters and you as Physicians cannot care for your patients without us. We may not diagnose patients as Clinical Laboratory Scientists, but my Pathologist who may be a MD or a DO most certainly does.
    And from the patient perspective, it was a TEAM of physicians who cared for me through my cancer diagnosis. It was a neurosurgeon who operated on me. It was a Pathologist who established my diagnosis from frozen section, cytogenetics & flow cytometry. It was the radiologist who issued a Radiology Report from my Brain MRI and a Radiology Technologist who guided my neurosurgeon. It was my oncologist who saw me through my chemotherapy, but he knew it saw safe for my next round of chemo because the Lab provided vital informaton prior to my Oncology Nurse hanging the meds that the Pharmacist prepared.
    And it was my primary care DO that knew to order that initial MRI when my headache was unrelenting. That DO knew he needed a team, and didn’t need to denigrate others who were part of the team. It takes a team. DO’S are not able to provide care without the team.

    Waiting for an apology to my profession, and perhaps you need to re-examine what your Ad campaign is actually saying, because the message you are trying to get out there is being occluded by arrogance and is coming across as DO’S don’t need the rest of the team. And that is a horrible message to stand behind.

     

    Reply

  6. David

    I understand what your ad campaign is trying to get at, treating patients as people and really listening to them. That’s a message we can all get behind. As a Medical Lab Scientist though the message regarding lab tests and “The Lab” is highly offensive. We are highly educated medical professionals who work hard everyday to ensure that physicians receive accurate and correct lab results in order to properly diagnose and treat their patients. We care just as much for the patients as any physician. To single out our department, which by the way does contain physicians that absolutely do diagnose patients, is just petty and makes you look like smug bullies.

    Reply

  7. Valerie Sloniker MT, ASCP

    As a Clinical Laboratory Scientist (Medical Technologist) I am extremely offended by your new campaign. I have specialized in Microbiology for 24 years, I’m quite sure you may need me and others like me someday. Such as, A Patient presents with recurrent UTI symptoms-how will you swing your magic wand and choose an appropriate antibiotic? And believe me I can come up with a 1,000 more sceniors to drill home my point. If I were to see a DO and they touted that they worked in a vacuum and looked down on the others disiplines instead of ‘teamwork’ I WOULD HIT THE GROUND RUNNING!

    Reply

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