By JULIE MINDA
Catholic Health Initiatives is implementing a system-wide rebranding strategy, through which it has renamed all of its facilities to include the "CHI" name, and introduced a new logo and tagline. The changes are aimed at uniting all CHI facilities under a common identity.
Formed through the merger of three Catholic health systems in 1996, Englewood, Colo.-based CHI currently includes 89 hospitals and a network of long-term care facilities, nursing colleges, home health agencies and other facilities across 18 states. All wholly owned CHI facilities now will incorporate "CHI" in their names and will use the new logo and the new
tagline, "Imagine better health."
A year in the making, the new branding strategy is the first change in CHI's branding since the system's formation. According to information from the system, the new CHI identity reinforces the concept that CHI's facilities "are part of a national system with the vast scale, scope and resources to improve health and lower costs." The branding strategy, the system said, underscores that CHI facilities are working together to improve patient care, to promote innovation and to connect patients and clinicians.
The new CHI logo has as its focal point a symbol that represents both a cross and a star. The logo represents CHI's "passion around its mission to create healthier communities," and its appreciation for the diversity and unity of the health care system and for the way CHI facilities work together to further the system's mission, according to information from CHI.
Joyce Ross is CHI senior vice president of communications. She explained that when CHI was established 18 years ago, leaders had chosen to not include the system moniker in the local facilities' names because at the time, the local facilities' names had very strong currency in their communities. While those local names are still valuable to those communities, there is now reason to emphasize that those facilities are part of a large, unified system, Ross said. The addition of the system name to the local name "opens the door for us to tell the story of the strengths that CHI brings to the market, and the benefits to the community." Also, the new branding effort was needed because "we were very different as an organization at the time" CHI was formed, Ross said. The system began as a holding company, with individual facilities functioning as separate entities. CHI has evolved into an operating company, with its facilities increasingly unified as a system and now largely using the same clinical practice standards and often the same back office systems, including information technology and payroll systems.
Ross said the rebranding work will serve as "scaffolding" to support the changes CHI is continuing to make. The system is becoming increasingly integrated, and the system wants to underscore the need for unity among its facilities.
Just prior to the introduction of the new branding platform, CHI also updated its mission statement, Ross noted, to reflect how it is transforming itself. The new mission statement now includes reference to CHI's evolving composition — it is focusing more on research and education — and the statement also more directly describes CHI's work of creating healthy communities.
The new mission statement reads, "The Mission of Catholic Health Initiatives is to nurture the healing ministry of the Church, supported by education and research. Fidelity to the Gospel urges us to emphasize human dignity and social justice as we create healthier communities."
Ross said, "Anyone working in the health ministry knows (health care providers) are navigating unchartered waters. All of health care is changing radically." The new branding elements and revised mission statement reflect that "CHI has put a stake in the ground to say that we'll shape our own destiny because that's how we can best serve our communities."