Making Cancer Center News

A case study of M. D. Anderson, a leading cancer research and treatment facility

9 April, 2007

With SnapStream DVR technology, the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center’s Public Affairs office was able to reduce its reliance on TV clip services, while improving their awareness of and ability to respond to media events.

The Situation

As one of the key institutions in the world’s largest medical center, the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center maintains a high public profile in local, national and international media. The task of generating, building and managing this profile falls to the External Communications Group within the Center’s Public Affairs department.

Like many such organizations, M. D. Anderson’s External Communications group relied exclusively on external clipping services to deliver print and electronic media clips that feature M. D. Anderson research, faculty and patients. However, since these services charge by the clip, expenses can mount quickly, especially when a major event occurs. Furthermore, clip services cannot provide full recordings, and can be slow to produce high-quality clips, which must be delivered by mail. In 2005, Bryan Vaughn of the Public Affairs office began looking for a solution that would reduce his group’s reliance on expensive and sometimes inconvenient clipping services.

The Solution

Now, M. D. Anderson has a server, built with SnapStream’s DVR technology, that can record up to 5 programs at the same time and can archive more than 800 hours of recording at once. The SnapStream-powered server is used to record four of the major TV networks, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. On this recording schedule, M. D. Anderson is able to archive approximately one week's worth of recordings and then refer back to those recordings as necessary. The ability to record a fifth program is used as a "wildcard" so individual recordings, as necessary, can be made from any other channel, such as CNN. All recordings are made in the standard MPEG-2 format, making it easy to burn them to DVD or convert them to other formats, such as Windows Media.

Separately, M. D. Anderson subscribes to a service which scans closed captioning information for mentions of the hospital and provides times and channel numbers for matching broadcasts. The hospital uses that information, as well as word-of-mouth alerts from members of the M. D. Anderson community, to pinpoint the clips of interest recorded by their SnapStream-powered server. Those clips are then manually extracted and either burned to video DVDs or converted to smaller Windows Media files and distributed via e-mail or USB key.

"The strength of SnapStream's TV recording technology is its ability to record multiple TV programs at the same time in standard digital formats. With this, we are able to easily leverage these recordings, distributing them via e-mail, viewing them with standard media player software or DVD players," said Vaughn.

Results

Although M. D. Anderson’s SnapStream solution was originally conceived as a cost-saving measure, it has resulted in benefits beyond cost savings- the Public Affairs department is now able to monitor media coverage in real time. Since the hospital’s implementation of SnapStream’s DVR technology, the hospital has been covered in major national health news. SnapStream’s digital recording technology has helped the Public Affairs department to become aware of and respond to these events much faster than was previously possible. “Our ability to respond to a major media event is significantly improved now that we’re able to share video internally in real-time,” says Vaughn. By presenting a powerful all-digital solution to the hospital’s media awareness needs, SnapStream DVR technology has helped the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center manage its public image better than ever before.

About M. D. Anderson

The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center is located in Houston on the sprawling campus of the Texas Medical Center. It is one of the world’s most respected centers devoted exclusively to cancer patient care, research, education and prevention.

M. D. Anderson Cancer Center was created by the Texas Legislature in 1941 as a component of The University of Texas System, and the faculty numbers 1,367 (M.D. and Ph.D.). M. D. Anderson is one of the nation’s original three Comprehensive Cancer Centers designated by the National Cancer Act of 1971 and is one of 39 Comprehensive Cancer Centers today.

M. D. Anderson has ranked among the nation’s top two cancer hospitals in U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Hospitals” survey since the survey’s inception in 1990. M. D. Anderson has ranked number one four times in the last six years.