Will there be a new truth in advertising push for claims made in hospital advertisements?
New rules are just around the corner that will change, forever, what advertisers can claim in their advertisements. No longer can we watch Jared, of Subway fame, claim to lose hundreds of pounds without also being shown a picture of a typical results person. That means if you show Jared, you will also have to show someone who doesn't' lose weight. Probably some portly gentleman with a spare tire hanging over his belt.
I can only imagine what this means for hospital advertisements. You know, the ones that show a person in extremis showing up at The Hospital On The Lake and walking out to play golf in a week. Talking up their cath lab and fancy schmancy MRI machines. Happy families giving testimonials about how they wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for The Hospital On The Lake.
Imagine if hospitals also had to show another patient getting their ribs crushed with CPR, in a bed of poop and urine as nurses and doctors try to revive them from their STEMI. Imagine if hospitals had to show grandma debilitated, wheelchair bound and getting shipped off to a nursing home, instead of back to her bungalow in the city to play bridge with her neighbors. Imagine if hospitals had to show 85 year old ladies being transported off to the morgue instead of walking out on their own two feet.
If you want to advertise to the world how great your Hospital On The Lake is, you will have to represent what real health care outcomes usually entail. And that ain't usually a pretty picture. Now that's truth in hospital advertisements.
How about before, during/immediately post- surgery, and after failure of gastric bypass.
ReplyDeleteBeing sliced open from sternum to pelvis, undergoing a gastrojejunotomy, with a wound that takes more than 70 staples to close, and ending up in the same place, due to cavalierly disobeying counseling, behavior modification, and medical advice. It took a lifetime to.pack it on; it's going to take a lifetime to lose it and keep it off.
The hospital in my neighborhood here will have to step up on the "whole hospital is a wifi hotspot" ads and lay off on the stent and orthopedic ads.