Joint replacement surgery can be a scary prospect — until you realize everything you’re leaving behind, and everything you’re replacing it with. Using fun plays on rhyme and meter, this campaign speaks to active adults ready to get back to “the sport of life” — whatever that means to them.

As the copy lead for this midsize campaign, I concepted, pitched and developed all copy, including billboards, print ads, numerous digital applications and scripting for audio reads. With ad placements varying from gym monitors to Pinterest, we generated a variety of executions featuring activities pertinent to the context.

This targeted micro-campaign set out to solve a distinct problem: the Lititz, PA, community was unaware of the WellSpan Urgent Care in their neighborhood. The capstone of the campaign was two 15-second ads to run at the local movie theater. Keeping the mood upbeat for pre-show audiences, two cause-and-effect stories were told through a single sentence paired with video clips. The reminder that accidents and injuries are a part of everyday life reinforces “That’s why we’re here — right in Lititz.”

As the copy lead for this quick-turn project, I adapted related messaging from a larger urgent care campaign for brand continuity, tailoring proof points from the creative brief to appeal to the Lititz audience. I also scripted around an existing video storyboard to cut down on production time, advised on voice casting and gave direction at the VO read.

The problem: The Spine Care program at WellSpan Health is housed within the neurosurgery department, and those brain plus surgery connotations were keeping new patients at bay.

The ask: Bring new patients into the funnel by making “comprehensive spine care” relatable and steering clear of anything neuro. Must-haves included the availability of non-surgical treatments. A secondary ask was to develop a parallel set of deliverables for the physician audience, targeting doctors to refer their patients to the program.

This was a midsize campaign with a sweeping list of tactics, including development of a new landing page that all ads would direct to. My “back talk” concept was selected for its brevity, directness and fit with the WellSpan brand persona of “your healthcare friend.” As the campaign’s copy lead, I found it adapted well to long-form executions like web copy and e-blasts, but also spoke for itself in spaces where we had fewer words to spend.

I was a contributing member of the copy team for this supplement to a larger campaign. Designed to dovetail with WellSpan’s tier-one campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this targeted digital campaign was a direct appeal to women 40-65. Marketing identified three key emotional moments of the breast cancer journey and wanted to reach women when they were:

- Overdue or reluctant to undergo breast cancer screening (i.e. mammogram)

- Confronted with an abnormal mammogram result, scared and looking online for comforting resources

- Newly diagnosed with breast cancer and researching the best care

The copy team divided the work, then came together to shape and finesse the overall story. Convincing women to get a mammogram despite perceived discomfort, inconvenience or fear of the results became a key challenge for messaging. The resulting digital display ads showcased a variety of tactics and tones that optimized reaching women with the right sentiment at the right time.

To drive enrollment in WellSpan’s online patient portal, the product owners asked for a series of light, engaging videos showing patients discovering various features and benefits. The only mandate? They each had to be about a minute.

As the copy lead for this series, I had the creative freedom to develop the animated world of Cristina, Sofia and Maya, just outside WellSpan’s brand standards. In addition to drafting each video script and storyboard, I sat in on the VO recording sessions and consulted on the reads to get the right tone to match our sweet, fanciful poof-pop visuals.

My tiny in-house creative team at Graham Healthcare Group was responsible for all marketing and communications. Our work spanned numerous service lines and brands, including Residential Home Health, Residential Hospice, Mary Free Bed at Home and AHN Healthcare@Home.

Because skilled home care is referral-driven, we created a host of compelling B2B collateral — handouts, booklets, brochures, etc. — to convince doctors to refer their patients to our capable service.

WellSpan Health’s substantial footprint in facilities across central Pennsylvania offers occasional opportunities to bring our brand logo and voice out into the community in unexpected ways.

With the right mindset, a mobile health clinic and a construction privacy fence turn into an expanded canvas to share a light, playful side of the brand.

Cutting through the brutal competition for skilled health care workers is an unending puzzle. While there’s always room for a nice targeted digital campaign with an engaging headline, some of my all-time favorite creative flexes include devising direct mail tactics worthy of more than a glance-and-trash.

Not pictured: our best and priciest gimmicks. Think “Grow With Us,” with custom-printed seed packet attached, and the glossy “You’re Future’s So Bright” box that would’ve cost more than the cheap shades it was designed to hold.

This massive company-wide overhaul of finance, supply chain, human resources and payroll systems from a patchwork of legacy solutions to a single, common platform was a years-long project that needed months-long communication support to secure employees’ buy-in and willing participation.

After working on some introductory assets and getting familiar with the details, I quickly became the go-to copy resource for all things Project Connect. The deliverables I wrote for this initiative included multiple informational mailers sent directly to employees’ homes and scripting/storyboarding for a series of animated explainer videos to reassure and guide team members through the transition.

Occasionally I’ve been called upon to research, distill, develop and/or maintain healthcare content to meet organizational needs. Ranging from patient education to financial performance data to regulatory compliance, these deliverables are as varied as their aims and target audiences.

A complex new Medicare rule was confusing staff about how soon regulations required home care to begin after a hospital discharge. Comprehensive training and digestible education resources were necessary to lower the risk of agency non-compliance. I was assigned to conceptualize and execute such a resource.

During planning discussions, lengthy conversations with subject matter experts soon revealed how thorny the new rule would be to explain, let alone interpret. The visual of a calendar with shifting notations arose as the clearest way to communicate the specifics of the timing. I drafted a script to explain the event(s) that can trigger a countdown of sorts — and reaching day 0 means failure.

The detailed script included voiceover and visuals to painstakingly walk through the details of the rule from multiple angles. Through development, my PowerPoint storyboard grew in complexity and polish, incorporating timed animations and embedded audio clips. Ultimately, it wound up being exported and distributed as the high-impact, low-budget final product.

Excerpt from final video is shown as a GIF.

Employee communications were a mainstay of my copywriting work at Graham Healthcare Group. From employee appreciation events to notifications about process changes, effective information delivery was paramount for a far-flung workforce that spent most of their time in the field.

Tiptoeing outside of the norm, we’d take the brand colors out for a spin with designs that would stand out in a crowded inbox.

In 2023-2024, WellSpan Health undertook a complete overhaul of its web properties. Every page was evaluated, rewritten and reorganized under a comprehensive, consistent platform with brand-new features for greater ease of use and personalization.

As a heavily utilized writing resource on the project team, I held primary responsibility for 35 of the site’s roughly 600 pages. I was also tapped to compose the initial drafts of another 70 pages.

Using the original site’s source material, expert input and generative AI tools and templates, I drafted and organized content into components that fit into the new site’s template structure. Through third-party editing and SME follow-up, the bulk of my pages were developed on schedule and among the earliest delivered.

Select page layouts shown.

I think we all have a few secret, beloved ideas that never loosen their hold on us from the trash pile.

Here’s a few of mine that got away.