How Adelante Sustainable Healthcare clarified its brand story to amplify its impact and simplify its life.
Clinica Adelante was a 33-year-old community health center in Maricopa County, AZ, whose mission was to “improve the health of our communities by providing quality, comprehensive primary health care with each patients ability to pay.”
But Arizona immigration laws, urban sprawl, increased competition and the great recession threatened the organization’s survival.
Therefore, in 2010 we took Clinica Adelante through the Story Cycle process to author a refreshed brand story that celebrated its legacy while creating an aspirational narrative of “sustainable healthcare for all” for the medical provider to live into.
The business results have been off the charts.
In the past decade, Clinica Adelante, now Adelante Sustainable Healthcare, has grown from 65 employees to 400. Patients have increased from 14,000 to 46,000, and patient encounters from 45,000 to 128,000.
Adelante revenues have gone from $13 million in 2006 to more than $41 million by 2016.
As an expression of its “sustainable healthcare for all” declaration, Adelante opened the nation’s first LEED Platinum certified Community Health Center in Mesa, Az, and a LEED Gold certified center in Peoria, Az.
By using the Story Cycle process to guide Adelante Healthcare’s new brand story, the organization secured its own sustainability as a business, while setting the bar to become a national leader in providing sustainable healthcare for all.
“The Story Cycle process was instrumental in defining our new and aspirational story, based on our legacy, that created an inspiring market position that our organization could live into providing sustainable healthcare for all.”
– Avein Tafoya, CEO of Adelante Healthcare
How the Story Cycle System™ defined Adelante’s brand story elements
Backstory: Clinica Adelante was a 33-year-old community health center founded to treat the healthcare concerns of primarily the migrant farm population in western Maricopa County near Phoenix, AZ. We rebranded the organization in 2010 as Adelante Healthcare.
Heroes: At the center of the Adelante Healthcare story are three primary audiences:
- The uninsured or underinsured patient
- The insured patient
- Premiere providers (Doctors, nurses and staff)
Stakes: What was at stake for Adelante Healthcare was the survival or the organization, as well as staking a position as a leader in sustainable healthcare. What was at stake for the patients was access to comprehensive care regardless of their ability to pay. And what was in it for the providers was an opportunity to practice world-class care in a healthy environment.
Disruption: Clinca Adelante’s call to adventure to refresh its brand to become more relevant and recover from its dwindling patient population.
Antagonists: The changing healthcare landscape was due in part to new, more restrictive Arizona immigration law, urban sprawl that replaced farms with houses, increased competition from for-profit providers, and the great recession. Additionally, and even though their hearts were in the right place, the board of directors for Clinica Adelante initially posed an obstacle for progress as they held tight to the legacy of the organization with a natural reluctance to seek a new direction.
Mentor: Clinica Adelante became Adelante Healthcare, Sustainable Healthcare for All, with the declaration to become a national leader in sustainability in every aspect of its operation
Journey: Adelante Healthcare supported its brand position and unique value proposition with three brand declarations:
- We will sustain the health of each individual patient
- We will sustain the availability of healthcare for all
- We will sustain the environmental health of the communities we serve
Victory: Adelante Healthcare has enjoyed approximately 300% growth in employees, patients and revenue over the past decade, and has launched the nation’s first LEED Platinum certified healthcare center in Mesa, AZ.
Moral: Honor the past, while not letting it constrict what’s possible for a healthy future
Ritual: In addition to becoming the family physician a growing number of patients, and building and staffing more LEED-certified centers, Adelante is now a national go-to resource for healthcare sustainability across the enterprise.
“See what you started, Park&Co.”
– Avein Tafoya, CEO, Adelante Healthcare
