When The Worst Happens

The Art of Crisis Management PDF

When Duke University Health System discovered in December 2004 that patients at Durham Regional Hospital and Duke Health Raleigh Hospital had been exposed to instruments accidentally cleaned with used hydraulic fluid rather than detergent, the system had a classic public relations (PR) crisis on its hands.

In a PR best practices approach, Duke should have told the truth, told it all and told it fast. However, this is not the approach that Duke University chose to take. Instead of reining in the runaway freight train, Duke stepped back and let the patients and the media charge ahead and tell the story themselves, and the result was not favorable to Duke.

When the worst happens, one of the first steps a company should take is to act quickly and decisively to tell their side of the story to the media. Usually this strategy ends the PR crisis much sooner than simply remaining silent, because saying nothing can often be the worst way to handle a crisis.

Duke said nothing to the media, and that error plunged them into a morass of negative publicity. When news reports began to surface of patients with post-operative problems they thought might have been caused by the tainted instruments, Duke’s reaction created the impression that the hospital was trying to conceal the facts or evade responsibility.

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