Health Care Facility Marketing Paper Example

Introduction

Health care facility marketing comprises comprehensive strategies, and methodologies used in advertising, promoting, and marketing healthcare facilities. The marketing techniques and methodologies usually vary from one facility to another. This paper examines two health facilities based in the New York City; Lenox Hill Hospital, and the Metropolitan Hospital. It analyzes the ways these facilities assess patients' perspective of the quality of care and services they provide. It explains the importance of marketing research in developing marketing plans and how the two facilities go about doing it. Moreover, the paper illustrates the types of competitive forces that exist for facilities when making their overall strategic and marketing plans. It analyzes the common internal sources of quantitative information used in the strategic decision making, and the critical strategic challenges facing the health care organizations. Additionally, it describes the latest service offered at each hospital and how they were marketed. Finally, there is a reference page for the information used in this paper.

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Patient Perspective of Quality and Service

The primary information the health care facility usually focuses on include the surveys on the patient's satisfaction, the internal investigations as well as the financial report. The hospital management wants to know the patients' feedbacks based experience while interacting with the medical staff as well as their views on emergency wait time. This information is then analyzed and recommendations drawn for decision-making purposes.

In both Metropolitan Hospital and Lenox Hill Hospital, the patient handling is very convenient. They both use well enhanced modern technology to treat their patients, giving them an up to date experience whenever they visit any of the facilities. The quality of customer service in Lenox Hill Hospital is high, enhanced with the customer friendly programs such as the after-service questionnaire which involves the customer. The patients can air their views concerning the treatment methods, service providing quality and give recommendations essential for decision making.

The Metropolitan Hospital, on the other hand, offers a wide range of patient-friendly programs. Some of their programs include the outpatient service, inpatient service, and the home-based service provision. Apart from that, the Metropolitan Hospital conducts surveys in the community to assess the customer experience from the facility while looking for the practical ways in which it can further improve the marketing techniques.

The respondents were updated on the main reason for their visitation after that; they were interviewed to enhance understanding of the facilities and the services they offer. The following questions were used for Metropolitan Hospital interviewee

• What is your role in marketing?
• What role does the marketing department play in the events planning for the hospital?
• How experienced is the marketing staff? Are there additional training enhancements for the emphasis on marketing ideas?
• Does the hospital create an annual marketing plan? Is the planning process effective?
• Are there means of verification for the achievement of the yearly goal and objectives?
• What data do you gather for research?
• How does the hospital maintain its financial stability?
• What are some of the needs of the community you serve? Do these needs change?
• What resources do you have to assist the community?
• Is the advanced technology a threat to your competitive advantage?
• The following questions were used for Lenox Hill Hospital interviewee
• What is your role in marketing?
• What are the key goals for this hospital?
• How are activities of this hospital managed?
• What strategies do you use in reaching out to the community?
• What data do you gather for your research?
• How is the value of hospital measured?
• How is the value of this hospital expressed in the market by its marketing team?
• What is the target market for this hospital?
• What are some of the accomplishments of this hospital?

From the visit experience, it is clear that the health care industry undergoes constant changes. The hospitals have to continuously keep up to date with the needs of the community to remain competitive in the market. In addition to that, there are also numerous uncertainties hence hospitals must formulate and develop the effective plans to grow. The interviewees I contacted in my selected hospitals provided useful insight on how each hospital works and the position of each hospital from a marketing perspective. The following is the summary of the interview for the hospitals.

I was warmly welcomed by Ms. Vargas, a marketing specialist at Metropolitan Hospital. She graduated from the University with the Bachelor's degree in Business Administration; she also has experience in Marketing. She has worked with the hospital's marketing department for more than four years. After explaining the reason for my visit, she readily accepted to answer my questions. The following are the answers to the above questions as given by Ms. Vargas. Her role in marketing was to work with the marketing team in planning, designing, creation, and delivery of marketing activities to enable the growth of the hospital. She also involved in service provision to satisfy the community needs.

The hospital has an outreach team which creates and implements the marketing campaigns for the hospital. The team's responsibilities include attending to the community care services, executing marketing strategies, communicating the objectives, products, and services offered by the hospital, and facilitating the digital programs for the hospital. The team is made up of multilinguistic employees who come together to plan events targeting the needs of the neighborhood community. The needs addressed pertains to the people with health issues who are not covered by the health insurance and have limited knowledge of the English language.

The hospital provides services to a diverse patient population, some of them speaking the limited English language. The needs are critically catered for by the hospital's clinical and administrative department leadership. The needs arising are assessed and comprehensively discussed with consideration of the available hospital resources to reduce hospitalization. The hospital attempts to meet the needs of its diverse cultural community by employing ultimate professionalism and ethical standards.

The hospital wants to know what people say about their experience during their stay at the facility. To obtain such information, the hospital uses discharged interview surveys as a source of first-hand information as well as the social media platform such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. which enables the administration to assess and make improvements to their services. It also considers the current trends and strategies of other hospitals offering services with similar needs (Lovrien, K. & Peterson, et al. 2013).

The major health issues identified include obesity, diabetes, and various behavioral needs which the hospital works on to solve.the hospital carries out various programs to assist in controlling such health problems such as community education programs. The programs seek to empower people so that they can take care of their health. The changes are there since the community has become aware of using their primary physicians.

Competitive Forces in the Healthcare Facility Marketing

Competition arises from the other healthcare facilities offering the similar services. For example, Lennox Hill Hospital provides Cardiology services. Its primary competitors are the Mt. Sinai Hospital and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital. There have been severe changes in the industry of healthcare in such needs as patient needs, research trends and the changes in the technological development. It has brought about uncertainties in the healthcare system thereby, calling for the thoughtful planning of the intended strategies involved in marketing. The directors in the marketing department must, therefore, be very watchful lest the hospital facility lose its position in the market.

According to Ms. Vargas, a Marketer of the Metropolitan Hospital, the primary competition faced in the industry is as a result of the ever-changing needs of their customers. To keep abreast with the patient needs and expectations, the Metropolitan Hospital has to frequently assess the needs of customers through its regular survey programs. Moreover, the changes in technology is a threat to maintaining or climbing up the market position. Competition based on technology is a very critical concern in the healthcare provider system. Hospitals must keep on training their clinical and administrative staffs in handling new technology kits, tools and equipment, methods, procedures, and medical processes.

Common Internal Sources of Quantitative Information Utilized In Strategic Decision Making

In both Metropolitan Hospital and the Lennox Hill Hospital, the patients answer confidential questionnaires to fill. The inquiry focuses on their experience at the facility. The patients have the opportunity to air their concerns through open surveys as well as the online social media platforms.

The information comes from the internal sources such as patients, their friends or family. The marketing expert after that analyses them in detail noting the crucial concerns. The synthesized information together with recommendations is then forwarded to the management for consideration during decision making.

The information collected from patients is useful in decision making. The hospital records all the views of employees. The records are later analyzed to find out the key issues to consider during decision making. These issues are then included in the objective statement of the hospital. After that, the marketing team develops strategies to address the issues.

Critical Strategical Challenges Facing Healthcare Organizations

The advanced technology is a threat. Thus the hospital must regularly train its clinical and administrative staff to provide services to the community effectively. At Lenox Hill Hospital, the interviewee was Mr. Leonard who had worked at the hospital for more than seven years. His role was to collaborate with the marketing team to come up with strategic campaigns which address the needs of the community. After carrying out campaigns, the team analyses and report the results which are used to execute programs for better service to the community.

The main goal of Lenox Hill Hospital is to enhance the wellbeing of the community. They focus on policies that involve the diversity in the care and services delivered to patients and their families. The hospital is dedicated to give access to the underserved neighborhoods and allow the community to receive the medical service and care they deserve.

The health care environment faces several challenges. Hospitals must continuously keep watch in their service provision, always striving to meet the community needs. In a community consisting of people belonging to diverse backgrounds, it is challenging to provide effective services due to such barriers as the limited understanding of the English language by some people.

There are two significant challenges in making effective strategic marketing techniques. First, the continuous advancement in technology creates a competitive ground for the health care facilities. Regular training for the hospital staff is therefore vital to keep abreast with the emerging technological trends. Failure to do so will expose the healthcare facility to lose its market position.

Secondly, the healthcare system faces the various changes in patient needs. People have become more expectant and very sensitive to their interest. For a healthcare facility to main...