Northwell Health creates film studio to promote the system’s brand

Northwell Health is heading to Hollywood.

New York’s largest health system is opening a film studio to produce both scripted and unscripted promotional content in partnership with production company CreativeChaos, Ramon Soto, Northwell SVP and chief marketing and communications officer, said in an announcement on July 24.

Soto told Healthcare Brew that, through Northwell Studios, the health system hopes to differentiate itself in the “hyper-competitive” New York healthcare market.

“Some of our competitors first had their hospital charters signed in the 1750s by King George. [They’re] long, storied institutions, academic medical centers, and Ivy League associations,” Soto said. “We’re about a 30-year-old brand, so we wanted to look at really different ways to engage with consumers and take the healthcare journey with them. We were enamored with entertainment and how entertainment engages with consumers.”

Michael Dowling, Northwell’s president and CEO, said in the statement that the films created under Northwell Studios will address social issues that affect the communities it serves, such as gun violence and mental health.

“Northwell Studios will leverage the power of storytelling to change the conversation, spark dialogue, and inspire action on a global scale,” Dowling said.

Behind the scenes. Northwell isn’t hiring its own production crews, or building its own sound stages, Soto said. Rather, the studio has entered into development deals with third parties and plans to use the system’s campus as the set, Soto said.

In terms of measuring success, Soto said it will pay attention to traditional brand metrics, like consumer awareness, preference, and likelihood that the consumer would recommend the health system to others.

The films produced will be “net neutral to us in terms of costs,” he added, because Northwell won’t be writing checks for the content’s creation or distribution—and it won’t be receiving a check, either. Rather, Northwell is trading its intellectual property rights for market access and distribution, he said.

“You can’t think of this as traditional branded content [or product placement] with the soda can that appears in a movie,” Soto said.

Where the costs come in, however, is when Northwell hires staff to manage the operations and filming.

Stars of the screen. Northwell is planning on an average of two major productions per year. The health system currently has five projects in incubation, all in different stages of development, according to Soto. The films will feature Northwell staff, including doctors, nurses, and EMTs, as well as patients.

“We want to ensure patient privacy, obviously, we want to make sure that patient consent has been appropriately received,” Soto said. “We want to make sure that the film crews abide by the workflows that we have in our institutions, but it’s typically a very minimal team that we’ll hire up.”

Northwell has previously released several shows and documentaries, including a Netflix show called Lenox Hill, which came out in 2020 and followed the lives of four Northwell Health doctors working at Lenox Hill Hospital. That show had “a lot of benefit for the brand,” Soto said. “It turned into this really interesting tool to tell the message to consumers in a very intimate way.”

And Northwell Studios isn’t meant to be a temporary project, Soto noted.

“This is a long-term channel for Northwell to develop and push out into the market,” he said. “This is a road that’s not been traveled for healthcare in the past…we see a lot of benefit that can happen from it. We’re very excited about it.”