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HEALTHCARE MARKETING

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Introduction

          With the changing of seasons and technology growing from time to time over, there is a need to come up with better ways and means of carrying out marketing. Creating awareness using the usual old ways no longer work due to increased competition and technology, therefore, to get to a higher notch side, there is a need to devise new plans which may include using digital means to market healthcare services (Maignan, Ferrell, & Ferrell, 2005). The changes in economic level which have gone down have generally made people be in less demand of the high medical care level most probably because they are not in apposition to afford them or because they have gotten alternative way out.

 Healthcare services

          Healthcare services include inpatient and outpatient services offered by the healthcare centers including medical equipment, dental, pharmaceutical services and physician services. Different hospitals may be specialized in offering different services depending on how able they are. The bigger the hospital, the wider the range of services they may be in a position to offer to the public and the wider the range of services, the better and advantageous it is to the hospital since they are likely to attract a variety of clients with different needs for their services.

Marketing of Healthcare services and tangible goods

          A service involves the use of human effort or mechanical efforts to satisfying the needs of human beings while tangible goods are those things that can be seen and touched which are used by human beings to satisfy their needs and desires. If a person is injured in a road accident or is unwell and needs to see the doctor for some help so that they can be treated, the treatment that the doctor will offer is referred to as a service since the doctor will apply their knowledge in assisting the patients. On the other hand, the medicines that the patients but to treat their wounds will be referred to as goods.

          Services are intangible meaning that they cannot be touched, seen, or even be felt while on the other hand, the goods are tangible, they can be seen, touched and be heard. In marketing the services especially for health care, they cannot be measured, and one cannot tell how much of the health care services is worth a given quantity of money or even the amount chargeable per time. On the other hand, one can tag a price on a given good like television since the quantity of a given can be measured using the dominant features that it has associated with it. 

          Services are not uniform in nature because the result of the delivery may be dependent on the experience that the doctor has or the mood that the doctor is in. In carrying out marketing for healthcare services, it may be impossible to assure the patients of the type of care that they are assured to receive from any given facility since what one health care organization considers the best may be one of the poorest services according to a different health care unit. Marketability of goods, on the other hand, is easy to carry out since the standards are likely to remain the same, and same expectation may be assured to the clients since it is easy to create goods of similar quality and features (McCaughey, DelliFraine, McGhan, & Bruning, 2013). 

          Another difference between the marketability of the healthcare services and goods is that the healthcare services are not possible to separate from their providers. There cannot be a service without the presence of the provider of the given service. Therefore in marketing a healthcare service, it is mandatory to let the clients know of where and how they can receive the services. Goods on the opposite can even be sold online without the seller having to be present physically with the client in the same place for the exchange to take place. This means that for one to get a healthcare service, the doctors or the nurses have to be physically present for the whole process to be successful.

Importance of marketing to a healthcare organization

          Just like any other marketing activity, marketing of a health care service creates publicity for the organization and hence creating awareness of their existence into the market. This is an easy way of getting customers since once they are aware of the existence of a healthcare facility, they will be definitely in a position to seek for their services which give opportunity for the organization to offer their services to the society and hence to achieve their core objectives of providing the services to those in need.

Pull marketing and push marketing in healthcare

          Push marketing uses push ads and conveys information about healthcare services to everyone including those who are not necessarily in need of them while the pull ads marketing of healthcare services conveys information about healthcare services to those who are in need of the information only (Beldona, Lin, & Yoo, 2012).

Legality

Legal responsibilities in healthcare organization 

          This is the process of being in line with the requirements of the law. Medical entities and employees have a responsibility of finding out the areas of service offering that they are not proficient in and come up with ways in which they can make their services meet the needs of the patients in the right way as required by the law. They also need to be aware of the emergency plans of their organization and the roles that they need to play in case of emergency situations that may need their inputs.

          They also need to identify the critical situations that they are likely to find themselves into and come up with better means of dealing with such situations in a way that is acceptable to the law. In the same note, they need to be aware of what the organization says in case employees find themselves in situations that are threatening to their health and the measures that the organization is mandated to take in such cases. 

           The medical entities have a responsibility according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration to ensure that the working environment for their employees are free from hazards that may be threatening to their health while at work and the employees, on the other hand, are to ensure that they are aware of their rights and in situations when the working environment is hazardous to them, they need to report the working conditions.

Real life case studies

           One of the case studies about healthcare organizations is of the employee of a General Hospital who left a message of the details of the illness of one of the patients with the daughter over the phone simply because the employee could not get hold of the patient at that given time. The employee, in this case, failed to adhere to the requirements of the minimum telephone message which state that any information about the health of a patient that is relayed through the phone has to be left to no one else but the patient (Hahn, Slager, & Harris, 2014). Not to any of their relatives or family members whatsoever unless the employee has stated so.

          To solve this issue, the organization had to train their employees on the amount of information that they could leave for their patients. One of the things to do is to check on the records of the patient to the hospital and find out the details of telephone messaging and whether they have any persons they would like to take their feedback on their behalf. This way, it helps in honoring the needs of the patient and keeping their information confidential considering that they may not want it to be known by anyone else.

           Another health care case study is of a medical officer who revealed the details of the sickness of the patient together with the test results to the employer of the patient yet the patient was not registered by the employer for medical coverage. This was inappropriate since information that is considered rather confidential was revealed to the wrong person so to say. The facility, however, had to make a correction to this mistake of their employee by having the employee apologize to the patient and had that employee laid off his duties. 

Employees’ safety

            According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, employers are expected to train their employees on the safety methods and what they need to do in case of an emergency situation that threatens their safety at the working environment. But if a situation arises and the employee is not in a position to do that which they are supposed to do to keep themselves safety, they are not supposed to risk it, but at least, they are required to let the employer know so that they are assisted (Edmondson, Higgins, Singer, & Weiner, 2016). Only those who are qualified for a given task are the ones that are considered right for employment because in that case if anything happens, the employer can defend themselves considering the fact that they went for employees who are qualified and able to take care of themselves in the required manner.

References

Beldona, S., Lin, K., & Yoo, J. (2012). The roles of personal innovativeness and push vs. pull delivery methods in travel-oriented location-based marketing services. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, 3(2), 86-95.

Edmondson, A. C., Higgins, M., Singer, S., & Weiner, J. (2016). Understanding Psychological Safety in Health Care and Education Organizations: A Comparative Perspective. Research in Human Development, 13(1), 65-83.

Hahn, C., Slager, D., & Harris, K. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,874,460. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Maignan, I., Ferrell, O. C., & Ferrell, L. (2005). A stakeholder model for implementing social responsibility in marketing. European Journal of Marketing, 39(9/10), 956-977.

McCaughey, D., DelliFraine, J. L., McGhan, G., & Bruning, N. S. (2013). The negative effects of workplace injury and illness on workplace safety climate perceptions and health care worker outcomes. Safety Science, 51(1), 138-147.