case study

This case study highlights Carestream Health, a large, established medical imaging equipment and healthcare IT software company that grew out of the former Kodak company. Our engagement with Carestream focused on thought leadership. Specifically, they engaged us to develop a white paper that addressed the full range of capabilities of their vendor neutral archive (VNA) solution.

With Healthcare Service Consultants’ contribution, Carestream was able to:

• Bolster their expertise in VNA technology
• Reinforce their position as a credible vendor
• Establish the company as “forward thinkers” in the medical imaging IT market

Carestream Health develops imaging systems and clinical IT solutions for a wide range of buyers. From hospitals and imaging centers to academic institutions and even veterinary practices. The overarching value of the company’s products is to improve workflow, staff productivity, and the quality of patient care, while reducing costs. The Carestream healthcare IT business is now part of Philips Medical Systems.

Despite being a long-standing entity in the medical imaging space, the company needed an imaging expert who could pull together the many pieces of a white paper. Internal marketing teams were already dedicated to other projects. 

With the white paper, Carestream’s goal was to educate the market about the varying medical imaging workflows that the Carestream VNA could (and should) address. At the time of our contract with Carestream, the general perception was that VNAs only had one purpose–store information. Our task was to shift that mindset to enable the reader to understand the broader role that Carestream envisioned for the VNA.

We first met with the team to gather information about the white paper’s mission and explore the challenges the company wanted to address. After the initial development stage, we helped the company mature and refine their ideas–arriving at a final strategy.

That strategy included coming up with key questions for the interview process. Those questions turned into conversations with both internal company stakeholders and customers who were using the Carestream VNA towards various ends. In white papers and case studies, that level of customer input is the difference between an opinion piece and a real-world educational piece.

All this groundwork culminated in a 2,500 word white paper that captured the company’s story. In addition, it provided Carestream with meaningful customer testimonies, as proof points of its capabilities, that could be used elsewhere in their marketing efforts.

Developing a white paper takes a certain amount of industry insight and content development expertise. With our deep understanding of issues impacting healthcare IT and medical imaging, and previous experience creating white papers, we were able to develop a marketing asset that helped:

• position the company as thought leaders in the emerging area of VNA technology, and 
• reinforce Carestream as a credible vendor

Contact us if you feel your company could also benefit from demonstrating your expertise through thought leadership.