Dayton Children's Dr. Mom Squad blog wins national award

Dayton Children’s Dr. Mom Squad blog won the Best Blog in Ragan Communication’s 2014 Health Care PR and Marketing Awards.   It was up against a blog from Boston Children’s, a hospital more than three times the size of Dayton Children’s, as well as ones from several other larger hospitals.  “We’re so excited about this honor, as it means we are fulfilling our mission to be just right for kids – by providing the best information in the right format for our moms to help them take great care of their children,” says Kelly Kavanaugh, director of marketing at Dayton Children’s.

Dayton Children’s launched the Dr. Mom Squad blog in July of 2013, as an addition to its Every Kid Counts blog. Instead of having just one Dr. Mom blogger, it featured a unique approach - four pediatric specialists who were also mothers.  These doctor moms take turns blogging each week about everything from ear infections to how to talk to your kids about Miley Cyrus’ twerking.  The blog provides perspective for moms on timely topics, like the latest post on Robin William’s suicide.  The Dr. Mom Squad bloggers are:

• Patricia Abboud, MD
  • Pediatric intensivist
  • Kids ages 13, 10 and 7
• Melissa King, DO
  • Medical director of Urgent Care
  • Kids ages 4 and 3
• Shalini Forbis, MD
  • Pediatrician
  • Kids ages 12 and 8
• Stacy Meyer, MD
  • Endocrinologist
  • Kids ages 3 and 2

Guiding their efforts is marketing communications coordinator, Grace Jones. She helps select their topics and advertises the blog in strategic places to ensure their message is seen. “Women make about 80 percent of health care decisions for their families, so it was important for Dayton Children’s to be the go-to source of information about children’s health. Research showed us moms were getting most of their news from social media, so we wanted to provide them with timely topics straight from the experts who were also dealing with raising kids, just like them,” says Jones.

In the first six months, the number of people checking out the Dr. Mom Squad blog almost doubled. In the next six months, the page views almost doubled again. That’s an increase of 295 percent over the last year.

Ragan communicators had high praise when announcing it won the Best Blog. “By itself, the blog is worthy of recognition based on the top-drawer content and its use of current events to inform content choice—one post addressed the Sandy Hook shooting, one focused on CVS’s decision to stop selling tobacco products, and one was titled, “Everybody’s talking about ‘twerking’—are your kids?”

The results the Dr. Mom Squad blog achieved earn it a first-place win in the Best Blog category of Ragan’s 2014 Health Care PR and Marketing Awards. The blog has resulted in media interviews for the doctors, enhancing the hospital’s local reputation, and has led to referrals to the hospital. “

About Ragan Communications:

For more than three decades, Lawrence Ragan Communications, Inc., has been the leading publisher of corporate communications, public relations, and leadership development newsletters. Ever since the launch of The Ragan Report in 1970, Ragan has provided the professional communicator and executives with timely, practical, and relevant information that few others can match. The Ragan brand now includes over 16 targeted newsletters in the areas of employee communication, organizational writing and editing, sales and marketing, media relations and motivational management. In addition to our newsletter division, Ragan produces several communications conferences, workshops, and senior-level forums throughout the United States. Ragan conferences draw more than 3,000 professionals annually and provide attendees with access to leading communicators, best practices and rich networking opportunities.

For more information, contact: 

Stacy Porter 

Communications Specialist 

Phone: 937-341-3666 

marketing@childrensdayton.org