Danielle Ruckert has built RH Strategic’s healthcare practice into a hub for some of the industry’s most urgent conversations.
She consistently and deftly guides clients through thorny issues—from Medicaid cuts for rural providers to new technologies reshaping organ transplantation—shaping messages that resonate with policymakers, patients and investors alike.
Her leadership has expanded the firm’s portfolio into women’s health, hospital systems and reputation management, adding to longstanding strengths in health IT and medical devices. She is especially passionate about bringing visibility to underrepresented areas of healthcare, from women’s health innovations to reform in the transplant system.
Danielle’s strategic eye is matched by her curiosity: She’s constantly scanning the policy environment, exploring new tools and mentoring colleagues who share her passion for communications and healthcare. That mix of industry fluency and forward vision has made her a trusted partner to companies navigating one of the most complicated and consequential sectors of the economy.
Josh Dougherty:
Welcome to A Brave New Podcast. This is a show about branding and marketing in the healthcare space. But more than that, it's an exploration of what it takes to create brands that will be remembered and how marketing can be a catalyst for those brands' success. I'm Josh Dougherty, your host. Let's dive in.
Thanks for joining me this week on A Brave New Podcast. Today, we're going to dive into the world of healthcare and health tech PR. And to do that, I have with me Danielle Ruckert. She's from Raffetto Herman Strategic Communications, where she is their healthcare practice lead, and has been doing this work with them for about a decade. So during our conversation, we're going to dive into a number of things that I think you'll find really relevant. First, we're going to talk about the role of PR and communications and building trust for a healthcare organization, a health tech brand.
We're also going to talk about those essential tactics that someone should be thinking about for any PR strategic communications effort. The part of this conversation I'm most excited for you to listen to is about the potential and the ability for PR and strategic communications to build trust and how to really leverage the patient, the centrality of the patient in storytelling, as well as transparency about how things work, how solutions work, especially in the age of AI, to be able to build that trust. And finally, we'll also touch on what I think everyone is thinking about today too, is how do we appeal to maybe the audience that is unspoken, the non-human audience, the machines that we need to please to be able to show up inside of things like ChatGPT, Claude, et cetera, and make sure that your brand can be found as people are using those systems.
So without further ado, I'd love to bring Danielle onto the show. Well, hi, Danielle. Thanks for joining the show.
Danielle Ruckert:
Thanks so much for having me.
Josh Dougherty:
Awesome. Well, before we get started, I'd love to have you share a little bit about your story with folks and tell me about your career path and where it's taking you.
Danielle Ruckert:
Sure. So, I've always been interested in how communications can drive change. So, it kind of makes sense that my career has centered on healthcare because of the sort of purpose-driven nature of healthcare communications. I've always found it really interesting that everyone at some point interacts with the healthcare system, and there's a lot in healthcare that's going really well, and there's a lot in healthcare that needs some work. And so, it's always been interesting to me to tell stories about better approaches and different ways of working in this industry. I also really appreciate that the stakes here are super high. We're not selling a product. I mean, we are selling products, but more often we're changing the way that people interact with something or we're shifting the way that they think about a new medical device and how it supports the future of healthcare. And so, I think that kind of transformation storytelling is really, really cool.
Over the course of my career, I've been everywhere from a lobby shop to a giant nonprofit and then to agency life. And I've been here at RH Strategic for almost 10 years. And working in the healthcare space here, I've done everything from medical devices to insurance to health tech to providers. And again, the common thread for me is always bringing it back to the patient and how it will eventually, at some point, impact us or the people we love or our families, friends. And I think it's just a really cool piece of the broader healthcare ecosystem to be working on.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. I think that's why a lot of us get into this, right, because we want to figure out how do we use our communication skills to be able to make a difference in the world. And so healthcare is one of those areas where there's a somewhat of a straight line at least to be able to do that. Well, you mentioned obviously you're at RH Strategic, you're the healthcare practice lead there. I wonder if you could introduce our audience if they haven't heard of you before to your agency and share about what the core focuses are there.
Danielle Ruckert:
Sure. RH Strategic is a PR and public affairs firm. So, the industries that we focus in, we say we focus on the innovation economy. And to us, that means companies that are disrupting the industry that they operate in, always for the better, usually for the better, but typically that sits in the healthcare, tech, or education space. So, operating across those environments, we really work at the intersection of public relations, strategic communications, public affairs work. And we're not just an earned media kind of shop. We think really broadly about how companies are showing up in front of their target audiences. And then, we work with them to make sure that the stories that they tell are making a difference on the business and the people that they ultimately serve.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, that's awesome. I think that focus on storytelling is so powerful in the healthcare space because oftentimes both those organizations that are in ... Maybe it's a health system or something, or health techs forget that their impact ultimately is on people. And so, it's nice to have folks like you that are similarly minded to our shop to be focused on how do we connect people to the real impact that they're having with patients. So, we'll talk a little bit more about that later, but I'd love to hear ... Obviously, my focus is in branding and strategic positioning. You're working in more of the PR strategic communication side of things, but I think there's a really big overlap between the two disciplines and where we work in. So, I would love to hear how you think about that overlap between PR and branding. How does that influence your work?
Danielle Ruckert:
Oh, it's absolutely critical to our work. If a brand is putting out a certain message and the PR story is totally different, then it really diminishes a company's credibility. And that's ultimately what we're here to do, is to build trust in a brand.
When I think about a brand, I think about it as the foundation of a company. I think about a company's values, the way that they're positioning themselves in the market, the way that they show up. I think brand people think a lot about how color impacts people's opinions of the brand. Here in healthcare, we talk a lot about how blue is the most trusted color, so a lot of healthcare companies wind up with blue branding, but it's really the company's foundation. And I think that PR, when working adjacent to brand, our job is to validate the brand that you've built and to go out and bring the brand into the court of public opinion and earn trust and credibility among target audiences so that there's this unified credible presence out in the market, and the best companies align brand and PR perfectly so that you're showing up the same way every single
Josh Dougherty:
Time. Yeah. I think without ... I mean, I'm obviously convinced that on the PR side, it's essential when you're rolling out a brand, because if we don't have a message that's resonating with people in a way that the market cares, brand is kind of ineffective at the end of the day. So, I think most people can understand the real value and importance of PR in getting that message out, but what is your elevator pitch? If you're talking to someone maybe who has invested in a bunch of other ways to build brand presence or to build awareness around their organization but they haven't really invested ever in a true PR program, how do you convince them that PR is essential for their healthcare or their health tech company?
Danielle Ruckert:
PR is all about earning trust from people, and it's an earned program. It's not something where you can go out and buy an ad that reaches a target audience and tells them about something. It's getting other people to tell your story for you and it's influencing the conversations that are happening around the dinner table about, "Hey, I saw this story this morning on Morning Joe about this really cool new approach to organ transplants." It's those kinds of conversations that we're influencing, and earning the trust and credibility from earned media coverage, from people who are following executives on LinkedIn and engaging with their articles and influencers who are just organically talking about your brand, that kind of trust and credibility really helps bring everything back together and is important for a brand that wants to grow and be memorable and build something lasting and meaningful. Brand is important.
Marketing is important. Advertising is important, but public relations layers on and helps you grow in a way that the paid programming just wouldn't.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, I really resonate with that as I think about ... I don't know if you're familiar with the Edelman Trust Barometer. Do you know that report?
Danielle Ruckert:
Yeah.
Josh Dougherty:
I know and love that report. And I think some of the findings from this year just really double down on what you're saying, right, because it talks about how we're becoming so much more operating in our own little silos and trusting the people that talk in maybe our media spheres or in our ... I think more closely in the communities that we live in. And so, I think what you're talking about becomes even more important in that case, right? Because if I'm not hearing about a novel approach to organ transplants like you're talking about from someone who's in the media sphere that I actually listen to and trust, I'm probably not going to listen to the brand as well.
Danielle Ruckert:
Yeah. Well, and here it goes beyond that. Pre-digital world, it was going out into the streets and telling stories and showing people things and hosting a pop-up or something like that that really gets people interested in a brand and engaging with the brand. Today, we're seeing a lot of that conversation that used to play out on the streets and at the water coolers. It's showing up online in Reddit communities and it's showing up in Facebook groups. And those early warning signals tell us PR practitioners, "Hey, we might have an issue that we need to address. We've seen this thing over and over again in this closed Facebook group and we really need to get ahead of that. Let's have a story that talks about more transparency because people are complaining we're not transparent, or what have you. So, it really just goes a level beyond.
Josh Dougherty:
Totally. Can you talk a little bit about how you're tracking that? Because before, you had a couple places to watch to see if a conversation's happening. Now, you have Reddit. You have all social media. There's numerous places across the internet. So how do you go about setting up dashboarding, listening to make sure that you're catching where those vital communications are happening?
Danielle Ruckert:
We have a lot of tools. We have external tools that we pay for, we've built our own tools, the technology changes very quickly. And so honestly, every couple of weeks we're experiencing changes in the way that we're monitoring and we're adjusting quickly. We have a whole intelligence team, people who are set to track key terms and track clients and track competitors. We report out to the clients on what the conversation's looking like, how the brand is showing up. We report out on issues that may sound like early warning signals that we might want to address. And then, so we're tracking the social chatter, we're tracking the online chatter, and then of course we're also tracking digital, we're tracking earned media coverage and paid media stories.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. So, across everything. This is part of what people are hiring you to do, right, to be up to speed on all the conversations that are happening.
Danielle Ruckert:
Yes, it is a lot of intelligence gathering. But fortunately, strategic firms aren't just monitoring. They're monitoring and they're reporting and they're advising and they're using either the signals they're detecting to address things early or they're finding white space and they're really coming up with stories to help fill the gaps so that brands can take leadership positions.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, I love that. So I want to zero back in on a couple different verticals. So, we think about healthcare and health systems and people that are working in that arena, and then you have health techs that are maybe building solutions for these health systems or for payers. Obviously, there's some overlap between those couple verticals, but there are also key differences. So I wonder if you could share a little bit about, as you're approaching PR for those types of organizations, what are some of the nuances that you think about between the two, the healthcare and the health tech category?
Danielle Ruckert:
That is such a good question. For me, healthcare is much more evidence-based. It's traditionally a more cautious industry. It's slower moving. A lot of times, you're speaking to the clinicians themselves, you're talking to big health systems, you're talking to policymakers. And so, data and outcomes evidence really, really, really matters there. Health tech, on the other hand, it feels like that industry moves a lot faster and storytelling seems to be a little more narrative driven. So it's more about what is the innovation story and how is the company scaling. And naturally, they're still talking to healthcare audiences, so they have to have the credibility and the proof points that healthcare companies do, but it seems like it's a little more ... Or at least on the startup side, it's certainly more innovation-driven storytelling as opposed to those heavier, more academic style narratives that we are trying to get out.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. Well, how do you ... I agree with you, we work with a lot of startups as well, and it is like we're casting this vision and hoping that people believe in what this vision will be, and obviously sharing proof points, all those sorts of things, to make sure that it's grounded in reality. But how do you bridge that gap for those types of organizations? Because often, they're selling into the health system that's more academic, more conservative, more slower moving. So, how do you go about building connection points between those two?
Danielle Ruckert:
Yeah. Our clients know we're always looking for data. We're always asking for advocacy data. We're asking for impact data. We're asking for, like, if you ran a pilot program, what can we talk about that worked? So, we try to really dive in where we can. I think the common thread for anyone in healthcare is really the patient. So, bringing it back to the patient story and the more that you can take a health tech narrative. So, maybe it's a revenue cycle management company. Bringing it back to the impact on the patient, even if they don't directly impact the patient, I think that allows us to find common ground between all of the audiences, and that seems to work well.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. What about someone who ... I guess most rev cycle management companies probably have an AI solution baked in. So that's what every health tech company currently has. They're experimenting with how to bring AI into their work. How do you go about making AI patient-centered? I think it may be similar to what you just talked about, that you're talking about outcomes that it's driving for real people, but are there other strategies you're using?
Danielle Ruckert:
I like to use a show and tell kind of strategy, and that's really hard to do when you're talking about things like AI that are very ambiguous ... Or not ambiguous, hard to illustrate. But the more you can talk through the patient experience or the clinician experience and bring it back to how does this actually affect people, that seems to work best. So, putting on your journalist hat and thinking about yourself as a reporter and you have to report to the nation, what do people actually care about? How can we make them interested in this AI tech component and how does it affect them and the people around them and then building backwards from there?
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, I love that. I love that. I think that helps overcome a bit of the ... We're seeing in the broader, I think, culture, a backlash against AI solutions. For good or for bad, even though it is our future, I think people know that it's deeply ingrained in everything that we're doing now. So, I'm interested to hear what are some tactics that you're working with as people are trying to struggle with lack of trust in AI, but obviously it's a big part of what it is going forward. If you're a health tech, you are using it. It might be core to your product. How do you overcome some of that mistrust with the work that you're doing with folks?
Danielle Ruckert:
I think trust starts with clarity and having a very simple talk track about what the technology does, what it doesn't do, communicating in a way that's super relatable really helps. And then, making sure that you are transparent about where the data lives, who's collecting it, what are we collecting, what are we doing with it. And I think most people understand the value of AI and the value of data integration more broadly. People everywhere experience the fragmented healthcare system that we live in. And so I think, again, broken record, but if you can find a way to tell the story about your tool and how it helps create a smoother system or a smoother patient experience for people, that seems to be most effective.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. Yeah. I resonate with both those things, the transparency and showing the outcome. I often think when you can open up and show someone how something's going to work, they're like, "Oh, that isn't as scary as I thought."
Danielle Ruckert:
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
Josh Dougherty:
So, I want to zoom back out a little bit. We went down this rabbit hole because I'm going to follow the conversation where we're going, but I want to zoom back out to talk a little bit about I think two areas about the core elements that you believe should be included in every strategic communication effort. So I'd love to hear first, if someone has never made an investment in PR and strategic communications, they've always been focused on we're building our web presence, we're using product-led growth to drive our work. Or maybe if you're in a health system, you've used traditional channels to drive growth. What are the core elements for someone who's starting out today that they need to include in their effort if they're going to take on a PR effort?
Danielle Ruckert:
Yeah. We always open conversations with prospects by asking about their objectives and their target audience, so being very clear on what you are hiring a PR agency to do and making sure that all of the decision makers are on the same page about why this agency is coming on board. So, what are we doing with PR and who? Who is the target audience? The more specific we can get, the more effective we can be. And from there, we can run a strategic planning process where we talk about those objectives, we talk about the audiences, we talk about the storytelling opportunities that exist. Our team always comes with some research about the marketplace or the narrative landscape and where the white space is and where we see this company either filling gaps or taking leadership perspectives on conversations that are already happening, but maybe there's not a leader, or maybe the conversation is happening and we have a counterpoint perspective, so we want to get that out too.
So, we do a whole strategy session. And in order to be effective in that strategy session and then effective in the outputs of that, which are usually messaging and a strategic plan and investments and programs, you have to know what you're trying to do.
Josh Dougherty:
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's very true. I think you need to start with the end in mind to be successful. What are some common tactics? As you get through the strategic planning, obviously, you're tailoring something to the client and the specific needs and audiences. But I think many people think of PR as like, okay, you're helping me manage press releases, and you're helping me manage maybe speaking opportunities to get our executives out. What are some of the other core components of a program that typically are included?
Danielle Ruckert:
Oh, yeah. Earned media is definitely one. Sometimes paid media, depending on the client themselves and where they want their story to be. We do a lot of executive social media, so a lot of standing up executives on LinkedIn. With the change in the LinkedIn algorithms, we do a lot more long-form content on LinkedIn. Sometimes, we support content for websites depending on the scope of the work that we're doing. And then, typically, it includes speaking, awards, programming, those kinds of things. We usually always do media training, and then we always have messaging and quarterly strategy sessions or maybe annual strategy sessions depending on the scope. So, that's more of the traditional PR, you want your brand out, that's the package.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.
Danielle Ruckert:
Our firm does a lot of public affairs work as well. And so, being in Washington, DC, a lot of times companies also hire us to support their public affairs objectives, and those scopes can be a little different in terms of still earned media, still social media, but a lot of stakeholder mapping, a lot of stakeholder engagement here. Maybe it's testimony support or supporting content for the lobbying teams, all of that kind of work we do as well.
Josh Dougherty:
Awesome. And if someone's got something established, so maybe they have been running a PR program, strategic communications, what are the kinds of new things that you think they should be thinking about? Where are the areas that are, like, these are new opportunities for us?
Danielle Ruckert:
The robot audiences. I think there's this sort of narrative that's evolved in the industry over the last year that the machine audiences really should be considered as either another primary audience or a ghost audience.
And as the work that we do becomes more integrated, and AI discovery changes the landscape of the way that people are getting information, smart PR agencies, ourselves included, are looking at standing up AEO products so that we are monitoring the way that a brand shows up on the AI algorithms and an AI search. We're building plans that influence either the channels that they are tapping to get information from or the numbers that we show up in, just the way that we communicate in general. People need to be thinking about the machines as another audience.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. We've always talked about that from search engine optimization, but it is more real than ever. Love all the schema work that we all of a sudden do too.
Danielle Ruckert:
Good, good. Okay. So you do all that.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, for sure. I think it's super interesting in that area because everyone has come out with a product. We use a bunch of technology as well to see how someone's showing up in all the different ... In Claude, in ChatGPT, et cetera, but it's also the Wild West. So, it's interesting to see how that's evolving so quickly to be able to see what actually drives results.
Danielle Ruckert:
It really is. And we've tested so many different tools and it's interesting how the different tools show different things. So, it's like a rat race for who will come out on top.
Josh Dougherty:
Yep. And my plug here would be if you're thinking about this already and you do this type of program for any of our listeners, but you don't have PR doing the work, a lot of what we know ... Although we maybe can't draw a straight line, but we know that media mentions all over the place about your brand help build credibility, which helps to increase your ability to show up inside of all the AI solutions. So, another plug to actually invest in your PR to make sure that you're showing up in multiple places across the internet.
Danielle Ruckert:
Great plug.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about data. What is your approach for measuring success with clients? You're influencing a ton of conversations, right, and you are trying to influence audience sentiment, I shouldn't say public, because you're hopefully focused on a couple of audiences. But how do you report back to people and show that your efforts are having success?
Danielle Ruckert:
Yeah. We use a model called RQM. We made it up. It's sort of our approach to measurement. So, we look at three factors when we evaluate success. So we look at R, which is Reach. Are we reaching the right people? Are we getting placements in the right channels? If our audience is having a lot of conversations on Reddit, are we on Reddit? Should we be on Reddit? All of those kinds of ... Are we just basically reaching the right people?
In the media, that comes up a lot too because we want to meet our audience where they are. And so, maybe CNN is an incredible placement for a lot of companies, but maybe they really want to reach healthcare decision makers, so they need to be in Becker's, and that's just where we focus all of our energy. So, those kinds of conversations fall under reach.
Then, we look at Quality. We look at, is the media placement telling a really impactful story or is it just a brand mention? Are we showing up as thought leaders or do we have a lame quote and we really need to work on that?
So, we look at the quality of the results themselves, and then Momentum. So month over month, year over year, are we improving? If we're not, we probably need to do something about that. And that's our approach to measurement.
Data is central to each of those themes. There's even data in the quality bucket. So, that's our model.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah. And as you're talking to folks and they're building a program with you, what is the time span of investment for seeing success? Because it's often people can start and like, "I want results now," but we all know it requires sustained effort. So if you look at that, your measurement model, how long does someone need to be investing in their work before they start to see returns?
Danielle Ruckert:
That is an excellent question, and I think it depends a lot on what a company already has when they're starting. If we're starting from scratch and we have to build an entire messaging framework and we have to train spokespeople and we have to stand up social media channels, that takes a lot of time. And if we're starting from scratch, then we have to invest a couple of months in building those components.
If we have a company that's ready to hit the ground running, I think we take a build the plane while flying it kind of approach. So week one, we're pitching stories while we're still doing the strategic planning process. So, it kind of depends on the readiness of the company themselves. That said, usually we look at 6- to 12-month initial commitments because it takes a long time to figure out what is working and what ... Recalibrate.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, of course it depends. You wouldn't be an expert if it didn't depend I think a little bit but I think that emphasis on long-term focus. I mean, six months isn't very long, but I think it feels long to many people.
Danielle Ruckert:
Yeah, especially if you've never paid for a PR program before.
Josh Dougherty:
Totally. But it's this idea that trust building takes time. It can be broken in an instant, but it's built over hundreds of little touchpoints that people have with a brand. Awesome. Well, as we close out the conversation, I'd love to just have you look forward a little bit and share maybe your thoughts around, in the next 12 months, what current trend do you think will be more of a practical reality for healthcare brands?
Danielle Ruckert:
We've talked a lot about trust, and I think that will continue to be a high bar for healthcare companies. I think there's a lot of ... Per the Edelman Trust barometer, there's a lot of distrust generally. And I saw a LinkedIn post earlier today that talked about needing to show your receipts more in healthcare, and I thought that was really interesting. The person who posted explained that by saying, "We need to talk less about advocating for more funding for a specific issue, and we need to talk more about"... Her post was specific to public health.
So, she used examples like how kids in a community could go to a playground because there was mosquito treatment. And so, we need to tell the story about the mosquito guy, and that was really important. So to answer your question, I think trust and continuing to earn trust by telling human focused stories is going to be critical over the coming months and years. There's also a lot of conversation today separate from trust about affordability, and I think that that is a big focus that everyone has.
It's a midterm election year. Everything just gets more and more and more expensive. There's a lot going on in our country and globally. And so, being very clear about how your healthcare either solution or offering or new tech helps mitigate growing costs or even saves people money, I think that we should hopefully see a lot more of those stories bubble to the top.
Josh Dougherty:
Yeah, I agree. I mean, we've obviously been in a healthcare affordability crisis, I think, for more than a decade, probably multiple decades.
Danielle Ruckert:
Our whole lives.
Josh Dougherty:
Our whole lives. At least our whole lives. But it is more important than anything, because I think you hear on the news, that's one of the primary talk points that continues to break through in what is a crazy frenetic news cycle, but it stays at the top. So, I think it's a good call out. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I'd love to share with folks how they can connect with you. What's the best way for them to follow along with the work that you're doing?
Danielle Ruckert:
Yeah, thanks for having me. This is really fun. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm sometimes pretty active there. So, I usually am talking about healthcare communications or sharing cool stories our team has placed, sometimes random things that I just think are interesting from a communications perspective. And then of course, you can always go to RHstrategic.com to learn more about the work that our firm does and see our latest blog posts and case studies.
Josh Dougherty:
Excellent. Well, thanks so much for the time, and I'm looking forward to following along with the work that you're doing as well over the next coming months.
Danielle Ruckert:
Likewise. Thank you.
Josh Dougherty:
Thanks for listening to this episode of A Brave New Podcast. Go to abravenew.com for more resources and advice on all things brand. If you enjoyed this episode, show us some love by subscribing, rating, and reviewing A Brave New Podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. A Brave New Podcast is created by A Brave New, a branding agency in Seattle, Washington that crafts bold and memorable healthcare brands. Our producer is Rob Gregerson.