Nation’s Leading Public Affairs Firm Grows Practice Building off Decades of Successful Healthcare Campaigns and Expertise; Including Recently Helping Lead Multiple Healthcare System Responses to COVID-19

July 8, 2020 (New York, NY) – SKDKnickerbocker (SKDK), the 2019 Holmes Report North American Public Affairs Agency of the Year, today announced the expansion of its practice division dedicated to communications leadership across the medical, bioscience, and pharmaceutical industries. The Healthcare Practice continues to leverage SKDK’s decades of experience and expertise to manage high-stakes healthcare campaigns, deliver media relations support, and implement thought leadership initiatives for partners in every segment – from hospitals, to healthcare startups, to labor unions.

In recent months, SKDK has been at the forefront of helping major healthcare systems and companies – including Mount Sinai Health System, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and SOMOS Community Care – navigate and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, SKDK worked with the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) to create an advertising campaign aimed at bringing patients back to hospitals following the COVID pandemic in New York. Working hand-in-hand with each organization, SKDK’s communications leaders helped guide strategy and provide tactical support for internal and external crisis response.

Healthcare organizations are increasingly dependent on digital communication and virtual access to healthcare information. In addition to expanding the healthcare PR team, SKDK has added digital capabilities and developed specialized advertising campaigns to address these new needs.

“Now more than ever, healthcare has become one of the most important and defining issues of our time, but also one of the most contentious,” said Loren Riegelhaupt, President of New York Public Affairs and Managing Director. “Healthcare companies need an experienced communications partner that can provide timely counsel on crucial issues and move quickly to deliver information. Our work on COVID-19 and many other vital healthcare issues nationwide, has created a need to expand our practice with greater resources and new innovative ways to assist healthcare professionals in this fraught environment.”  

Combining expertise and strategic insight, the Healthcare Practice has the depth of understanding and vast knowledge to help any healthcare client – unions, patient groups, national hospital systems, academic institutions, issue advocacy groups, biotech startups, and digital health companies – to navigate and thrive in today’s ever-changing landscape.

“We are seeing the massive implications to people’s lives and every aspect of our economy from policy decisions related to healthcare,” said Meaghan Rose Smith, Senior Vice President in SKDK’s Washington, D.C., public affairs practice. “SKDK’s strategists intuitively understand how to navigate these issues after our extensive work inside the halls of Congress and state Capitols shaping policy as well as implementing successful campaigns from the outside.”

Today’s announcement builds on SKDK’s portfolio of specialized divisions of expertise including the Litigation, Regulation and Investigation and Foundations and Philanthropy practices. For more information on the healthcare practice, please visit: www.skdknick.com/our-services/healthcare. 

About SKDKnickerbocker:

SKDKnickerbocker (SKDK) is a top national communications and political consulting firm bringing unparalleled strategic communications experience to Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, philanthropic organizations and labor unions, as well as political committees and candidates. With offices in Washington, New York, Los Angeles and Albany, SKDK offers strategic support to managing a crisis, protecting a brand, advocating an issue or winning an election. The influential Holmes Report once again named SKDK as the North America Public Affairs Agency of the Year in 2019, following wins in 2015, 2016, and 2018. To learn more about SKDK, visit our website at www.skdknick.com. 

— SKDK is a proud member of The Stagwell Group, a collaborative group of agencies who are out to “reinvent the holding company,” according to the Wall Street Journal. The Stagwell Group portfolio includes more than a dozen best-in-class, digital-first agencies who are focused on what modern CMOs need. Learn more about Stagwell at www.stagwellgroup.com.