The Internal Communications Officer, working closely with the Internal Communications Manager, the Director of Public Affairs and the Director of Publications, is directly involved with ensuring that the internal communication needs of the hospital are carried out in a high-quality, effective, thoughtful, timely and cost-effective manner.
The Internal Communications Officer is responsible for planning and implementing the hospital’s multi-faceted internal communication efforts, providing news and information to employees, staff, volunteers and other internal audiences. The position involves keeping informed about and tracking the various ongoing and upcoming hospital wide and departmental efforts, activities, and events to ensure timely, accurate and clear communication about such issues. He or she is responsible for working with a variety of hospital committees, departments, programs and services to develop and disseminate communications to specific internal audiences as needed. The Internal Communications Officer assists with responsibilities for the hospital’s primary communication vehicle, the weekly MGH Hotline newsletter. He or she works to coordinate and improve internal communications throughout the institution. The Internal Communications Officer may be responsible for the maintenance of certain Public Affairs-related websites, including the hospital wide intranet and the vast publications portion of the Public Affairs site. He or she serves as a vital resource to all hospital constituencies seeking advice and guidance about appropriate and effective ways to disseminate messages to specific audiences.
The Internal Communications Officer serves as assistant editor of the weekly MGH newsletter, the MGH Hotline. In this capacity, he or she is responsible for contributing story ideas and supporting the process of scheduling placement of articles according to timeliness, appropriate institutional messages and news value. He or she also is responsible for ensuring that articles are written, edited and approved in a timely manner.
In addition to serving as assistant editor of the weekly MGH Hotline, the Internal Communications Officer also helps craft the MGH Awards and Honors and MGH Alumni Newsletter publications. He or she also contributes to other newsletters and projects, including web stories and Dr. Peter Slavin’s From the Desktop. He or she develops story ideas, formats and general content; edits and proofreads content; and ensures that appropriate approvals are obtained. He or she supports the effort of making sure all aspects of these publications, including photography, editing, headline and caption writing, proofreading and production are completed on time and are of high quality.
The Internal Communications Officer serves as a resource to and works with various staff members in other departments that produce regular newsletters to ensure consistent, accurate and appropriate messages to various audiences across the institution.
The Internal Communications Officer represents the Public Affairs Office on various hospital committees to follow progress of major hospital initiatives and to ensure regular and accurate communication of key decisions, activities and achievements. He or she assists departments and services with developing appropriate internal communication efforts as needed.
The Internal Communications Officer is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with key individuals throughout the institution to ensure that Public Affairs is informed about ongoing work at the hospital. He or she processes the various story ideas to determine appropriate uses for the information, including for internal publications as well as opportunities for media initiation.
The Internal Communications Officer contributes to the maintenance of the online version of the MGH Hotline on a weekly basis. He or she also helps to maintain the hospital wide intranet site and other internal-only websites as needed.
The Internal Communications Officer is involved in planning, coordinating and carrying out special events for the hospital and office as needed.
As a member of the Public Affairs team, the Internal Communications Officer serves as a resource for all aspects of work in the office and is integrally involved in the hospital’s media relations program, including responding to media inquiries; initiating media coverage; being a part of the department’s on-call rotation; drafting, editing and distributing press releases; helping to prepare reports documenting media activity; and evaluating the effectiveness of the program.