Tools & Checklists · Free checklist
Hospital launch checklist
A demand-generation checklist from twelve months before opening to the first ninety days after.
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Why it exists
The problem it solves
A new hospital opens with a building, a licence and a roster of consultants. It rarely opens with demand. Patients do not know it exists, search engines have nothing to show, referrers have no relationship with it, and the contact centre has never taken a call for it. Every one of those takes months to build, and most launch plans start on them far too late.
This checklist runs from twelve months before opening to the first ninety days after, on the demand side only: brand and listings, doctor and service pages, search, contact-centre readiness, referral mapping, launch communications and measurement. It assumes someone else owns commissioning and clinical readiness.
Inside
What you get
- A phased timeline: twelve, nine, six and three months out, launch month, and the first ninety days
- Listings, website, doctor-page and search tasks in the order they need to happen
- Contact-centre scripts, language cover and enquiry routing for a new unit
- Referral mapping and doctor-outreach steps for the catchment
- Launch communications, media and community tasks
- What to measure weekly in the first ninety days
Audience
Who it’s for
For marketing, digital and launch leads opening a new hospital or a new unit in a multi-unit group.
Method
How to use it
- Set the expected opening date and count back to fix the date for each phase.
- Assign an owner to every item in the current and next phase.
- Review the checklist in every launch steering meeting, not just the marketing one.
- If the opening date moves, move the launch-comms items with it but keep the listing, search and referral work on schedule.
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Questions about this checklist
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Around twelve months before opening for the foundations: brand, domain, website structure, listings strategy and catchment research. Search visibility, referrer relationships and review history all take months to build, and none of them can be bought in the launch week. Launch communications come later; the groundwork is what decides whether the first ninety days have patients.
Market the place, the service lines and the catchment rather than names. Build service pages, location content and listings that can take doctor details later. Map referrers and community groups. Once consultants sign, add their pages quickly and let them lead communication. The checklist sequences the work so nothing depends on names that are not yet final.
A dedicated number or routing for the new unit, scripts covering location, directions, departments open, doctors and OPD timings, fees, TPA and cashless status, and what is not yet available. It needs language cover for the catchment, a callback queue, and a way to log every enquiry in the CRM from the first day.
Enquiries, booked and honoured appointments by service line, first-contact time, and the reasons enquiries did not convert — especially services not yet available and slots not open. Watch listings and reviews weekly. Early data is noisy, so look for patterns and blockers rather than judging channels on a few weeks of volume.