Campaign: “Don’t Put Your Health on Hold”

Hospitals across the country are developing messaging and marketing programs designed to urge people to avoid delaying necessary care. This is because a significant number of people with serious health issues are delaying care due to fear of returning to medical facilities. There is the perception that healthcare facilities are COVID Zones. Of course, hospitals have also done a great job of telling people to stay away and the public heard us loud and clear.

Copley Health Systems in Morrisville, Vermont, together with other area providers, has developed a “Don’t put your Health on Hold” campaign and is disseminating information through radio interviews and in local newspaper ads. They are also approaching local businesses and asking them to put up campaign posters and help spread the word.

For me, this approach to the current challenge, where Copley has teamed up with Community Health Services of Lamoille Valley, Lamoille Home Health & Hospice, Tamarack Family Medicine, and Lamoille County Mental Health Services, is exactly the model that others should emulate. The future will not look like the past. Our communities have been changed by this virus and need our help like never before. Large numbers of people are unemployed and newly uninsured. Others are just scared. This is the time for organizations to come together to reassure our communities while extending outreach so that those most impacted by the pandemic have ongoing access to quality care.