VCU Health is new brand for VCU Medical Center

The logo is simpler: a single line of type with the round Virginia Commonwealth University seal on the left, adjacent to “VCU” in big gold letters and the word “Health” in black letters.

VCU colors are gold and black.

“We are not really changing the brand. We are changing how the brand is expressed,” said Marcos F. Irigaray, vice president of strategy, marketing and enterprise analytics for the VCU Health System.

“It’s still the seal next to ‘VCU.’ We are identifying the enterprise now as VCU Health. We are at the point where we need to update our brand to reflect the broader scope and the more comprehensive organization we’ve become.”

VCU Health encompasses VCU Medical Center’s hospitals and clinics; the School of Medicine and other health professions schools; the MCV Physicians group practice; Virginia Premier Health Plan, a Medicaid managed care plan; and Community Memorial Hospital in South Hill, which VCU acquired last year.

“We actually began this process well over a year ago,” said Cynthia Schmidt, chief of marketing for the VCU Health System.

“We’ve had hundreds of interviews with all different kinds of stakeholders. We’ve talked to students, alumni groups. We did work with (Denver-based branding firm) Monigle Associates. They are one of the leading brand consultants and work with a lot of academic medical centers,” Schmidt said.

“A lot of it was about how can we find greater clarity when we talk about the health enterprise,” she said.

Signage will change over time, as will the VCU logo on things such as lab coats and vehicles, Schmidt said.

“We have kind of a replace and replenish process. We are not asking everyone on day one to burn their lab coats and start over. The idea is … as things need to be replaced, they will be replaced with the new mark. The same thing with letterhead. Even things like vehicles. Virginia Premier has vehicles all over the state of Virginia, and we will be working with them to make sure those are appropriately branded with the new mark.”

Irigaray said it was still accurate to refer to VCU Medical Center, for instance, when referring to a patient being transported there for care, or to use VCU Health System when referring to titles of senior health system leaders.