Which kind of makes sense to anybody who hears Gary LaPierre advertising Beverly Hospital's emergency room on WBZ in the morning (Sorry, Gar, if I'm stricken while driving up the West Roxbury Parkway, I'm not going to demand the EMTs take me up to the North Shore).

So why are hospitals spending good money on advertising? Money that might otherwise pay for, oh, I dunno, reminding employees to wash their hands? Paul Levy, CEO at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, writes it's really more about building a brand - especially among doctors and would-be donors rather than among potential patients:

... [I]t helps create a mindset that the hospital has standing and stature and permanence in the community. This is important in attracting employees, enhancing physician recruitment and affiliations with other hospitals and physician practices, and generating interest from lay members of the community to serve on the hospital's governing bodies and to offer philanthropic support. These three purposes are actually fundamental to commercial viability in the health care world, especially for academic medical centers. ...