The Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada (HIROC) is unveiling a dynamic new news site, offering subscribers and other stakeholders an insight into the organization and an opportunity to play a role in creating the safest healthcare system.
HIROC is the largest healthcare liability insurer in Canada. The reciprocal works together with its subscribers, partners and other healthcare stakeholders and is guided by the vision of partnering to create the safest healthcare system.
Axiom News and HIROC have been collaborating even more closely recently to envision, develop and launch the new news site called HIROC NOW.
Philip De Souza, a HIROC marketing and communications associate based in the reciprocal’s Toronto, Ont. office, speaks with Axiom News about the impetus for HIROC NOW.
“The way news is being delivered is constantly evolving,” Philip says.
“Our subscribers want to know what’s happening right now and they want to be part of the dialogue. This new news site, hirocnow.com, is something special we’ve created for all our stakeholders, it opens the door even wider, offering visitors a better snapshot of how HIROC partners with everyone and is committed to creating the safest healthcare system.”
Philip is pumped about the potential of the site. He’s looking forward to the plethora of new opportunities for the reciprocal, its subscribers and healthcare stakeholders. “We are excited that we are able to meet and hopefully surpass our many stakeholder expectations with the launch of this new news site.”
He explains the rationale and course of action that contributed to landing at HIROC NOW.
“Throughout the process of building the site, in the back of our minds we visualized our subscribers embracing innovation, embracing change, but more importantly, seeing something come to life that they specifically asked for. HIROC recently reached out to many of our stakeholders and hosted a number of focus groups.
“What we heard was these individuals look to HIROC to find out what’s happening next on the Canadian healthcare landscape. They are eager to hear what new tools and resources the HIROC team is developing, but they also value the fact that HIROC’s depth in the healthcare sector allows for greater knowledge-sharing, thereby fostering a community of like-minded patient safety advocates.”
A big factor in the success of the new site involves readers, newsmakers and safer healthcare champions.
HIROC invites subscribers and other stakeholders to visit the site and get involved in a variety of ways, including commenting on stories, suggesting story topics, checking out the live Twitter feed and watching videos.
Philip describes HIROC NOW as “a unique initiative that is building on our long-standing relationship with Axiom News. Axiom, through Natalie Hamilton, does a wonderful job of giving us the news of safety initiatives from our subscribers. HIROC NOW builds on that with news of developments from HIROC as well. A big thank you to Peter Pula and Terry Gavan for all of their hard work in helping us bring the site together.”
Peter Pula, Axiom News CEO, says hearing from many perspectives is more a part of the way organizations connect and communicate than ever before. “People find and engage with content differently, reading, listening, watching. People are consuming, co-creating, and spreading stories in new ways all the time,” he says.
“It is now critical for our team to have a responsive capability for shaping online spaces. We need lots of flexibility to present stories in written word, photo essays, video, and podcasts in whatever way suits a particular story or story participant best.”
HIROC is one of the first of Axiom’s clients to create a stand-alone news-centric site with the right options.
“It’s pretty amazing to have HIROC and Terry involved in making all this happen. These sites are making a huge difference to how we connect with community and share stories,” Peter says.
The joint team built HIROCNow.com in a few short weeks.
As for what’s next, Philip says, “we’ve got a lot of ideas to keep the conversation going — from Skype interviews to hot topic blogs. The sky’s the limit.”
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A version of this article was originally written for the HIROC NOW news service. This repost, for which we received permission, follows the style guidelines of the original post. To learn more about generative newsroom options for your organization or community, please contact peter(at)axiomnews.ca.
