20-minute read 

You have some top health care IT reporters’ names in your head and a desire for press coverage in your heart.

So you want to appeal to them with the perfect pitch. Yet if you listen to journalists’ justifiably rant about the terrible pitches they receive, there’s a high likelihood that you may end up annoying them instead.

And annoying them will banish you to the “unhelpful” heap in their head, along with thousands of other well-meaning PR and marketing people. You don’t want to be the one who makes a reporter cry like Holly Hunter’s character in Broadcast News.

Holly Hunter as journalist Jane Craig in Broadcast News.

Instead of diving straight into pitching health tech reporters, your starting point should be providing. Providing them with what they’re looking for, whether that’s relevant research, unique insights about market trends or introductions to people you know who they might be interested in speaking with.

Of course, you’ll have a tougher time providing a journalist with anything of value unless you know her. Specifically:

• Who her readers are and what resonates with them 
• What topics she covers
• What she cares about
• What language she responds to (hint: hold the buzzwords)

Although it’s easy to find a quick snapshot of a journalist on a site like Muck Rack, you need to dig deeper.

You should read what she writes and shares, comb through her Twitter feed, watch and listen to any of her interviews or talks on YouTube and, if you can, email or talk with her about what she’s interested in covering right now. Get a real sense of this person.

Only when you know the journalist better will you be able to judge if the information and insights you and your company have might help her. The name of the game is to help. It’s truly the only way.

But the clock’s a ticking, and this can take a while, so I’ve summarized some of this information below.

• Christina Farr, CNBC 
• Bill Siwicki, HIMSS Media
• Jessica Kim Cohen, Modern Healthcare
• Laura Lovett, MobiHealth News
• Rebecca Pifer, Healthcare Dive

Christina Farr, CNBC

Twitter and email: @chrissyfarr, christina.farr@nbcuni.com

“The Duchess of Digital Health” (yes, she’s English), Farr has been the technology and health reporter at CNBC since 2017.

In this San Francisco-based role, she pens numerous exclusives and appears on CNBC shows “Squawk Alley” and “Closing Bell,” as well “Today.”

Farr has written about health tech in reporting roles at VentureBeat, Reuters, KQED and Fast Company. Her experience and insights have helped make her the one other journalists in this space retweet. She has deep connections in Silicon Valley and holds an MA in journalism from Stanford.

In 2016, Rock Health named Farr digital health “Reporter of the Year.” This award came on the heels of her being placed on MedTech Boston’s “Forty Under Forty Healthcare Innovators” list.

Likely the most pitched journalist in digital health, you should show mercy to her inbox and be thoughtful about what you send.

1.  Farr focuses on public companies but loves talking to entrepreneurs and innovators. 

CNBC (“the recognized world leader in business news”) readers and viewers are interested in public companies, which steers Farr’s coverage.

Known for her scoops and breaking news, Farr has written extensively on what the tech giants like Apple, Amazon and Google are up to in health care. Some of these widely-shared stories include  “‘Alexa, find me a doctor’: Amazon Alexa adds new medical skills” and “Google sister-company Verily is teaming with big pharma on clinical trials.”

But these big company stories do not mean she isn’t interested in startups. Not at all. In her TEDxOSLO talk, “What if the patient knows best?”, she said that the “favorite part” of her job is talking to entrepreneurs and innovators who are working to fix a broken health care system by putting the patient experience first.

She also has a history of covering (and caring about) patient health information, from a still frequently referenced KQED story from 2015 – “Critical condition: How a broken medical records system is endangering America’s health” – to her TED talk.

2.  She wants the story to be more about humans and less about tech.

One of her guiding principles, which she discussed on Dr. Luke’s Waiting Room podcast, is that “a better story focuses on people and not things.”

She looks for stories of relatable individuals who can talk about how they’re using technology in their lives, not just the technology itself. A perfect example of this is her popular story “Telemedicine apps are thriving because working moms love the convenience of their smartphones.”

3.  Build a relationship with Farr by being helpful and serving as a resource.

This goes for all journalists, of course. But even a quick perusal of Farr’s Twitter feed and LinkedIn posts shows that she values building direct relationships with a range of people — patients, doctors, VCs, CEOs — over time. What she doesn’t value? PR agencies that get in the way.

CHRISTINA FARR ON TWITTER  Dear founders: if you know me and we’ve spent time together, don’t hire a PR agency to offer to “make an introduction.”

As such, the best way to get on her radar is not to pitch her in the traditional press release sense. Instead provide her with valuable tips, information or unique insights.

Ask yourself:

• Do you have some data or useful (not promotional) information that would be of interest to her based on what she covers?
• Information that you haven’t shared with other health care IT reporters? 
• Can you connect her to a friend of yours who might be a trusted source for her? 

This is the “how-can-I-help?”  mindset worth adopting.

You should also keep close tabs on her Twitter and LinkedIn feeds. Farr often makes direct appeals for sources and information and asks open questions, tweeting “looking to speak with …”; “what do you think?”; and “DM me please.” If you can help her out, you’re building a relationship.

“Journalists go to reliable people. Be those people.”   – Shira Abel, CEO and Lead Strategist, Hunter & Bard

4.  Farr can’t abide jargon.  

Journalists often say they hate jargon, but Farr is dyed-in-the-wool about it. Amen to that.

So what’s wrong with a bit of jargon here and there?

 

According to Farr, “Meaningless jargon leads to misunderstanding and hype. And it allows broken systems to thrive.” That’s a pretty great reason.

5.  She passes on corporate messaging.

Farr favors people who aren’t on the corporate messaging train but who are “real/authentic/no BS. It’s so appreciated.”

TIP: Farr recommends holding off on releasing news until the week after the annual JP Morgan healthcare conference so reporters have time to
cover it.

Bill
Siwicki, HIMSS Media

Twitter, email: @SiwickiHealthIT, bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com

Bill Siwicki is managing editor of Chicago-based HIMSS Media, which includes Healthcare IT News, MobiHealthNews, HealthcareFinance News and HIMSSTV. The company delivers industry news to a global audience of health care influencers, medical professionals, policy makers and technology buyers.

Prior to HIMSS, Siwicki was editor for mobile at Vertical Web Media for nearly 10 years. The company publishes Internet Retailer magazine.

A mobile marketing adjunct faculty member at DePaul University, he’s been praised on his LinkedIn page by industry leaders as “an absolute subject-matter expert” and someone who has a “deep understanding of the market.”

1.  Siwicki is an experienced health care IT reporter. 

Siwicki has nearly 30 years’ experience in journalism with more than 17 years in health tech and health care finance. Unsurprisingly, he’s well-versed in this space.

At Healthcare IT News, he writes most frequently about the following topics (not ranked) in relation to health care:

• EHR
• Mobile devices
• AI 
• CIOs
• Medical devices
• Interoperability 
• Telemedicine
• Population health 

2.  His expertise is mobile.

Siwicki has covered the use of mobile tech in health care, retail and marketing from its infancy. Between 2005-2015, he was regarded as one of the world’s leading mobile commerce and mobile marketing journalists when he worked at Internet Retailer magazine, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Back at Healthcare IT News, Siwicki has written extensively about mobile tech, whether it’s a story about an app saving Hancock Health $1 million annually or how mobile devices have increased nurse satisfaction at Truman Medical.

Cementing his mobile cred, Siwicki serves as a judge for the high-profile Global Mobile (GLOMO) Awards at the Mobile World Congress each year in Barcelona. And throughout the year, he’s an adjunct faculty member in mobile marketing at DePaul University.

3.  Siwicki gathers the experts and goes granular. 

Siwicki frequently rounds up experts to inform his audiences on how to choose and use specific health care IT.

Sometimes he brings these health systems’ CIOs and CMOs, as well as vendors and consultants, together for a panel at a HIMSS event. Other times, he interviews them for an in-depth article.

Many of Siwicki’s articles are for “the betterment of the reader,” as John Pulizzi refers to actionable content that matches an audience’s exact informational needs in his book Content, Inc.

Siwicki often focuses on stories of how hospitals have saved money and improved care through implementing digital health initiatives.

As such, if you have concrete information on the positive impact your company’s product is having on the ground, Siwicki might be interested.

To determine if you have sufficient amounts of data and details to pitch him, you can refer to his case study-like articles, such as “For value-based care, a Texas health system puts cost and risk data at the point of care.”

4.  His special reports focus on best practices. 

In 2019, Siwicki launched a 20-feature series called Health IT implementation best practices on “what it takes to deploy today’s most necessary technology and tools.”

Two of his most popular special reports are “The keys to launching an EHR” and “Giving medical, IoT special attention.”

In these reports, he quotes heavily from experts in the relevant field, often including their headshots. This is an example pulled from his report on “Patient engagement tech done right.”

5.  Siwicki examines the role of CIOs. 

As digital health initiatives increasingly impact health systems’ performance, Siwicki is interested in how that changes the role of the hospital CIO. Specifically, he examines how CIOs align these initiatives to business goals.

In December 2018, he spearheaded a series of these type of articles under the umbrella “Focus on the Business of Healthcare: What digital transformation demands: The entire C-suite’s influence.”

TIP: Given most of his articles showcase experts, you might want to consider positioning your company’s clients and executives as resources for him. Those leaders who can clearly explain how they turned a problem area around through tech.

Jessica Kim Cohen, Modern Healthcare

 

Twitter, email: @JessicaKimCohen, jcohen@modernhealthcare.com

Since early 2019, Cohen has been the technology reporter for Modern Healthcare, which says it’s the leading publication in readership among hospital CEOs, CFOs and CIOs.

She wrote for Becker’s Hospital Review for nearly three years covering AI, data science and digital health. Prior to Becker’s, she was published in Chicago Reader, Chicago Health Magazine and Baltimore magazine.

Cohen graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2016 where she studied the root causes of health disparities as part of her sociology degree.

1.  She covers how hospitals and health insurers are using technology to boost their performance. 

Cohen covers the technology, transformation and innovation beats for Modern Healthcare. Or as she says in her LinkedIn profile, “Medical software that makes physicians want to pull their hair out.” Jokes aside, she’s tweeted that she loves digital health because it’s the future.

Her Modern Healthcare articles focus on:

• News stories, such as new government regulations and lawsuits, as well as developments at the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS to add more startup accelerators to ‘DRIVe’ network”)

• Longer-form features that cover the challenges hospital CEOs and CIOs face and how they address them

She has said that any time someone can provide her with “concrete information” on a patient or safety outcome or cost savings a hospital has seen, she’s interested. Her story “Penn Medicine reduces ICU stays with a clinical alert app built in-house” exemplifies this.

“Finding a good story is about figuring out what challenges hospital systems are facing right now and highlighting a solution, whether it comes from a startup or an established organization.”   – Jessica Kim Cohen at MATTER health media panel

Prior to joining Modern Healthcare, she was at Becker’s Hospital Review. She has said that one of her favorite articles from her Becker’s tenure was “How an MRI installation disabled iPhones at an Illinois medical facility.” She also produced a weekly newsletter on AI and analytics for Becker’s.

2.  Cohen is the main contributor to the “Innovations” section of Modern Healthcare. 

The “Innovations” section appears in the magazine every other week. Stories that run here tend to focus on hospitals and health systems that have experienced positive outcomes, such as improved patient care and using new and innovative technologies. Cohen has said that this is the area where she works with startups the most.

So if you’re a startup looking to build a relationship with her then bookmark “Innovations.”

3.  She’s at home amidst the details and data.

Cohen likes to do her homework and delve into the details, which is why she keeps tabs on hospital data breaches reported to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights; quarterly financial results of large tech companies like IBM; and MIT Technology Review.

In a similar vein, she has tweeted that fact-checking is “hugely important.” So ensure whatever information you send her stands up to scrutiny.

4.  Cohen is interested in women’s health. 

Cohen tweets (and sometimes writes) about a range of women’s health-related topics, such as abortion pills by mail. If you’re a femtech company, it could be worthwhile to get to know her and find ways you might be helpful.

5.  Her mother is Dr. Helen H Kim, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Reproductive Endo and Infertility) at Northwestern University. 

A go-to expert, Dr. Kim was quoted throughout a 2018 Chicago Tribune article on women’s fertility.

TIP: If you’re unsure if a story is a good fit for her, Cohen suggests asking for her advice and feedback.

Laura Lovett, MobiHealthNews

 

Twitter, email: @lauralovett7, laura.lovett@himssmedia.com

Lovett is associate editor at MobiHealthNews (MHN), a HIMSS publication that identifies and contextualizes emerging trends in digital health. Its readership consists of innovators at health systems, insurers, pharm and tech companies, startups and VCs in the U.S., U.K., Europe and Asia-Pacific.

She’s worked at MHN since 2017, where she leads the newsletter Women in Healthcare IT and the same-named section of HIMSS’ Healthcare IT News.

Based in Boston, Lovett previously worked for GateHouse Media, one of the largest publishers of locally based media. She received a New England Newspaper & Press Association award during her GateHouse tenure.

1.  Lovett covers breaking news in digital health. 

She has said that MobiHealthNews’ “sweet spot” in digital health coverage is:

• Launches 
• Funding announcements
• Mergers and acquisitions 
• Large studies 

The health, science and technology stories that Lovett writes cover:

• The patient experience (“How hospitals can engage consumers to innovate a new patient experience”)
• The consumerization of health care (“Three emerging trends in consumer digital mail-order health products”)
• Mental health (“Mental health apps plentiful but few provide clinical research”)
• Health equity (“As health tech innovation moves forward, who is being left out?”)

2.  She doesn’t shy away from covering what’s not working. 

Reading her articles, you might glean that digital health is not always rosy. Lovett tends to take a measured approach; she looks at validation and outcomes when writing about apps, such as in her story “Consumer fitness apps show nonsignificant behavior improvements.”

One of her most popular tweets was about telemedicine usage rates in rural areas.

LAURA LOVETT ON TWITTER  This is the second study I’ve reported on in the last month that says most patients in rural communities just aren’t using telemedicine. Still seems to be focal point for medical community and federal government. What have you heard?

Another article she wrote that reflected a less hyped reality: “Digital health market is hot, but startups still struggle to create sustainable business models.”

3.  Lovett is interested in women in digital health and femtech. 

As the leader of Women in Healthcare IT newsletter and section, Lovett writes on female-led digital health companies and what’s holding women back in the industry (“Women in venture: The case for increasing representation in digital health investing”). She has also written about the recipients of HIMSS Most Influential Women in Health IT Award.

Lovett has directly stated that she wants to cover the femtech industry. If you’re a femtech company, take note.

LAURA LOVETT ON TWITTER  I’m interested in writing on the Femtech industry. It seems like there are scores of pregnancy, fertility and sexual health tools for women. What other kinds of Femtech is out there? Is there anything you would like to see but haven’t?

4.  She writes about digital health efforts around the world, not just the U.S. 

If you’re a digital health company based in the U.K., Ireland, Finland, Africa, China or somewhere else outside the U.S., you may want to get on Lovett’s radar.

Scoping out the international health startup scene, she’s written articles such as “Cancer-focused tech startup Vine Health lands £1.2M in seed funding” and “In-depth: Technology’s role in tackling the global mental health crisis.”

Lovett was partly educated in the U.K. and has been published in two of their leading news publications – The Independent and The Guardian.

5.  She’s worked directly with patients. 

Lovett is one of the few health tech reporters who has worked directly with patients. In 2014, she tutored U.S. military veterans recovering at a Veterans Hospital in Boston. Part of the Veterans Upward Bound program, she helped to develop these patients’ academic skills.

TIP: On Twitter, she makes direct appeals for information and input so it is worth tracking her feed in case you might be able to share something valuable.

Rebecca Pifer, Healthcare Dive

 

Twitter, email: @RebeccaMPifer, rpifer@industrydive.com

Pifer is the Associate Editor of Healthcare Dive, a Washington, D.C.-based publication whose readership consists of health care providers, payers and industry executives.

A 2018 graduate of the University of Virginia, she worked at Anthropologie prior to starting her career in journalism. This real-world retail experience provides her readers with a unique perspective when she writes about consumerism in health care. Some of these stories have run in Healthcare Dive’s sister publications Retail Dive and MedTechDive.

1.  When it comes to digital health, Pifer is most interested in health equity and interoperability. 

You might have success landing on Pifer’s radar if you provide her with information that’s directly relevant to what’s she’s interested in. Specifically:

• Health equity in health tech, AI and IT. She frequently covers all things AI, whether interviewing Amazon’s senior leader of health care and AI, Taha Kass-Hout, or writing about how AI shapes the health tech landscape. 

But what will likely garner her attention is the impact AI and digital health can have on removing obstacles to health, such as poverty and discrimination.

So, for example, if you have ideas around how health tech could improve outcomes for a population of seniors, who she wrote about in “Half of middle-income seniors won’t be able to afford healthcare, housing in a decade,” you might pique her curiosity.

• Interoperability in health care and government regulation of health IT.  Pifer covers issues related to the exchange of health information nationwide, including developments around USCDI (U.S. Core Data for Interoperability) and updates to TEFCA (Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement). She wrote about interoperability rules in “HHS pitches standard APIs, free patient access to health data in long-awaited rules.” 

She’s also interested in patient matching (“Provider demand for accurate patient matching is high, Pew says”).

• Innovations and advancements. In the “what’s new and interesting” space, Pifer covers everything from medical devices (“Aetna launches app for Apple Watch”) to Amazon’s roll out of PillPack to 5G (“As 5G looms, most hospitals watch from the sidelines”).  

One thing to note: if you’re a health care startup that’s announcing a round of financing, you may want to skip sending that release to Pifer.

“Healthcare Dive doesn’t really cover Series funding, but I receive a crazy amount of pitches on it.” – Rebecca Pifer

2.  She’s got the D.C. angle on digital.

Based in Washington, D.C., Pifer has a bird’s-eye view of what’s happening in health care as it relates to legislation and the executive branch.

Although she doesn’t cover digital health exclusively (e.g., ACA, Medicare), she often writes about where it intersects with the government. Examples include:

• “House votes to overturn decades old ban on national patient identifier”
• “CMS, physician group launch AI challenge”

If you’re in D.C. for a health conference, you might see her there. She’s attended U.S. News & World Report’s Healthcare of Tomorrow summit and AcademyHealth’s National Health Policy conference in the past.

3.  Pifer pays attention to press releases.

OK, maybe not all of them, but she does take a look. She even caught CVS Health jumping the gun on a release while trawling through their site.

REBECCA PIFER ON TWITTER Heart Attack Of The Morning comes courtesy of @CVSHealth, which has apress release template on its website for finalization of the @Aetna merger ALTHOUGH IT IS NOT DONE YET (https://bit.ly/2P0EnNH ). Good to know reporters aren’t the only ones who prewrite, I guess.

And like the lion’s share of health care IT reporters, she’s not a fan of what she dubs “PR speak.” So, as ever, be straightforward and authentic when sending her information or pitches.

4.  She’s witty! 

You could do worse than pitching her in a way that appeals to her wit. She’s got plenty.

REBECCA PIFER ON TWITTER there should be a dating app to match healthcare reporters with execs at #HIMSS19 to cut down on the mt everest of PR emails I have rn

5.  She’s volunteered for cancer causes. 

As noted in her LinkedIn profile, Pifer served as co-chair for a McLean, VA fundraising event for the American Cancer Society, raising over $111,200. If you work in digital oncology, she might be interested.

TIP: One of her pet peeves is PR people who send poor follow-up emails so put extra thought into yours.

 

 

 

 

Conclusion: Serve, don’t spam top healthcare IT reporters

 

 

If you’ve grown used to no replies to your email pitches to health tech reporters, hopefully, this post has shown you a better and more effective way. 

 

And that way is to build a relationship with a reporter based on helping them serve their readers. If you can do this, you will be far more likely to one day receive coverage. 

 

Do you think this approach might work for you?