Summa Health unveiled a new logo on Tuesday to match its shifting approach to health care, its upcoming $350 million facility overhaul and other changes.
Gone is the wine-and-teal-striped shield over the word “Summa” — something Summit County’s largest employer has depended on to identify itself for at least 15 years.
The new orange, red and blue logo — which looks like pieces from a circular puzzle coming together with a subtle “S” built into white space in between — will be rolled out over coming months.
“It’s all part of our strategy to transform culture,” said Dr. Thomas Malone, who became Summa’s president and CEO in January 2015 following the retirement of longtime Summa CEO Tom Strauss.
“We have a new way of delivering care, and treating the whole patient and coordinating that care,” Malone said, “The new logo reflects that, we’re doing something different here, something special.”
Summa’s rebranding process began about 15 months ago and included the possibility of changing the hospital system’s name, said Rob Whitehouse, Summa’s senior vice president of marketing and community relations.
But market research showed Summa’s name was valuable.
“It’s embedded in the community. It’s very strong,” Whitehouse said.
The same research, however, revealed Summa’s logo didn’t match its brand.
There have been a myriad of changes in health care over 15 years, Whitehouse said, including Summa’s push for population health — working with patients before they are sick, to make them healthier or even prevent diseases like diabetes before they happen.
Hospital officials — working with Monigle Associates, a Denver-based marketing company — considered about three dozen new logos, looking for a visual representation of Summa’s mission.
They also wanted the Summa logo — both in design and in color — to stand apart from Cleveland competitors who have pushed into the area with Cleveland Clinic’s takeover of Akron General and the opening of University Hospitals facilities.
Cleveland Clinic uses blue, green and white and a series of boxes that look a bit like a pixelated four-leaf clover. University Hospitals’ logo is red, white and black and looks like a shield with a half of a stick figure — or a semicolon missing the lower dot — dancing on its edge.
Summa’s new logo, by contrast, is intentionally more colorful and less corporate looking, to show Summa is providing health care in a different way, Whitehouse said.
Two of Summa’s focus groups latched onto what would become its new logo right away, Whitehouse said.
“One woman said, ‘I can see myself in that.’ Perfect. That’s what we were looking for,” he said.
The focus groups also saw diversity represented in the logo, with people of different ages, income levels and races making up a whole, whether among Summa’s staff or the patients Summa serves.
Summa officials declined to say how much they spent developing the logo and launching it on everything from Twitter and business cards to T-shirts and signs on buildings.
The logo has been under wraps for months as the hospital planned how to roll it out, Whitehouse said.
On Tuesday morning, Summa revealed it to hundreds of its 9,000 employees and will begin training “brand ambassadors” this week about it.
“You need to put a story behind a brand to show the meaning behind it,” Whitehouse said.
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.