The U.S. Senate voted 97 to 0 Tuesday to confirm the appointment of former Procter & Gamble CEO Robert McDonald, 61, as the new Department of Veterans Affairs secretary, a move that will bring a much needed branding expert into the VA noted David A. Shore, Ph.D., a former associate dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and an expert in leading change initiatives in healthcare organizations.

Publicly, much has been made about McDonald’s history as a former Army Ranger, one of the most elite units within the armed services, and his commitment to serve his fellow veterans. Compared to executives from within the healthcare industry, he also brings a fresh perspective unencumbered by possible biases toward any one form of healthcare delivery or payment system.

However, his most valuable asset may be as a brand expert explained Dr. Shore in a phone interview with HealthCXO.

"He’s really smart about developing trusted brands and that is why he is being nominated," Dr. Shore said. "It is not for the other things ... P&G is world-class organization that is all about building a brand’s reputation and trust. Proctor and Gamble brands are consistently rated as among the most trusted and well-known brands in the world. At the end of the day when you do the root cause analysis of why stuff fails in healthcare — whether it is mergers, acquisitions, patient compliance in consistency data — it comes back to not having trust. Not having trust is a really inefficient way of doing business, because what trust does is accelerate sales and utilization cycles and reduces transaction costs and time. Trust is this lubricant, this really efficient way of operating, whether it is between me and my boss or in the clinician patient relationship, or if it is between executive directors within individual hospitals within a healthcare system."

Dr. Shore noted that he did not believe that the VA could simply re-brand a bad product and expect patients and families to accept that change without proof. There are indeed deep operational problems that need to be corrected first. However, as the program is improved, communicating the improvements and redefining the brand as one of excellence is an absolutely critical component to success.

"If you do good things but nobody knows about it, does it really matter?," Dr. Shore asked rhetorically. "Clearly, you need to improve on the delivery and on the promise of the VA, but if you do not at the same time improve the brand that is the reputation you will not get the type of increased equity you are looking for. Again the data is very clear. It is not necessarily the highest quality in any market that is the market leader, so you have to do both. You have to have good stuff, but you also have to be known for having good stuff. Yes, he certainly will have massive operational issues to deal with [as the new Secretary of the VA], but he also has massive brand and reputation issues."

As a temporary measure, members of Congress are contemplating a bill to allocate around $12 billion in emergency funds that would allow VA beneficiaries to seek care outside the VA healthcare system if they cannot get prompt quality treatment within it.

Hospital operator HCA Holdings is one organization that is hopeful such a bill will pass. “We think it's good,” noted Victor L. Campbell, HCA senior vice president, in a response to an analysts question on the Nashville, Tennessee, company’s most recent earnings call. “It's good for veterans. Exactly how it will play out, what the opportunities will be for private care, are yet to be seen. As we've told you in the past, we are well positioned in a number of cities and some states where there is a good veteran population. So we're there to serve. We've got some contracts now. And we would anticipate that we will be participating to some degree once it passes.”