Ms. Calhoun joined Avera in 2013 to lead the centralization of marketing and communications across Avera, including 37 hospitals, 300 clinics, two insurance companies, 41 long-term care facilities, and an 86-county home care operation. She is also responsible for patient education, physician communications, governance communications, and Avera’s community partnerships. She envisioned creating and delivering consistent, consumer-centric, digitally enabled experiences that cultivate, engage and retain the consumer over their lifetime. Ms. Calhoun has implemented customer relationship management tools to support next best actions and loyalty building strategies across the enterprise. This work contributed to growing Avera’s market share to 45.1% and to raising marketing’s contribution to expected reimbursement to more than $37 million per quarter. Ms. Calhoun also leads the development of a cohesive internal communication strategy, implementing channels to effectively deliver communication objectives throughout the organization, and driving the creation of a clear and compelling narrative within external communications, thought leadership, and marketing messages. She is now working to accelerate the inclusion of voice of customer in Avera’s product and service development.
