The new marketing chief for a New Hampshire health system plans to lean on data — and her fellow senior leaders — to drive growth and workforce retention.
Charlotte Brown-Zalewa was named vice president of marketing and communications at Manchester, N.H.-based Elliot Health System — which is anchored by the 296-bed Elliot Hospital — in August.
She had previously served in marketing, communications and physician relations leadership roles at such health systems as York, Pa.-based WellSpan Health, Cambridge, Mass.-based Beth Israel Lahey Health, and Louisville, Ky.-based Norton Healthcare.
Becker’s caught up with Ms. Brown-Zalewa to discuss her marketing strategy at Elliot Health System and how she’s navigating larger trends in the industry.
Question: What are your plans and goals for your new role as VP of marketing and communications of Elliot Health System?
Charlotte Brown-Zalewa: The key goals are being intentional with identifying data insights that we utilize in our marketing communications work, guiding business planning for broader system campaigns, and focusing on advertising and marketing, strategic communications, and community presence. It’s about leveraging the right combination of key data sources, many internally, to shape and execute strategy.
We’re developing intentional strategies to augment workplace culture, business contribution, and revenue cycle operations. Understanding customer domains, preferences, and referrals management is a critical pathway. Beyond that, a couple of other key goals include creating an internal retention strategy, which is just as important as external go-to-market strategies.
At Elliot Health System, we’re thinking differently about how we collaborate across our executive team. There are well-known duo leadership teams, like CEO-COO or CEO-CHRO [chief human resources officer], but there are also emerging trios, like CEO, COO and CHRO, or COO, CFO and marketing. My work with the CEO and CHRO is about guiding innovative workplace strategies and culture.
We earned the top spot in Forbes’ 2025 list of America’s Best-In-State Employers for healthcare in New Hampshire. That recognition positions workplace culture as something that’s recognized internally and externally. Other key areas include advancing our vision to be the first choice to give and receive care, and better connecting patients to services and resources to meet demand.
Q: What healthcare marketing projects are you most proud of from your career?
CBZ: At Norton, I had the opportunity to be directly involved in hospital and ambulatory operations. That shaped how I understood the care experience, the customer journey, and which stakeholders needed to be included.
I honed my ability to bring multidisciplinary services and leaders together on a vision. That’s yielded strong financial results. Examples include exceeding new patient volume targets in weeks versus months, realizing some of the highest year-over-year growth for clinical programs, and building programs during COVID that drove record contribution.
Q: How does AI fit into your marketing strategy?
CBZ: We’re working to fully integrate AI capabilities to streamline writing tasks, such as scientific documentation, within workflows. More broadly, we’re incorporating generative AI to improve communication and interaction with patients and customers. It’s about guiding personal needs, while keeping human expertise and interaction core to the function.
Q: What is the biggest challenge and opportunity in healthcare marketing today?
CBZ: The challenge is connecting with patients on their schedule. Healthcare has faced rapid evolution for decades, well before COVID, and people often need care when they’re vulnerable. Our role is to create individualized, accessible, and viewable navigation, meeting people where they are.
The opportunity is the partnership between marketing and operations. At Elliot Health System, the critical next step is innovating to create a connected enterprise with collaboration between marketing, communications and operations. That way, people can count on us as their first choice to find, get and keep care whenever they enter our system.
