Machealth Organization’s Wellness and Prevention Programs Essay

Introduction

Health care systems need to be transformed from those that offer treatment to patients only, to those that prevent illnesses and ensure the wellbeing of people. In reference to Levy (2007), marketing wellness and prevention programs motivate people towards changing their negative behaviors (Levy, 2007). Therefore, the marketers of health care companies should apply marketing skills to encourage, motivate, incentivize, and motivate individuals to engage in wellness and prevention activities. In other words, it is essential for health care organizations to move from acute care to wellness and prevention (Labiris & Niakas, 2005). This means that they should adopt marketing wellness and prevention programs. This can lead them towards a concomitant emphasis on these two as part of their strategic platforms. This paper assesses the marketing strategy of Machealth, a health care organization in Australia with respect to wellness and prevention. It looks at the limitations to the current approach and provides a description of how the wellness and prevention program can be marketed in the organization.

Analysis of the Machealth Health Care organization

The Machealth Care organization is based in the region of the Aborigines of Australia. This organization relies on acute care in its provision of treatment to the community. The Australian aborigines have been facing the burden of chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and asthma among other conditions. The Machealth Health Care organization does not currently have a wellness and prevention program. In other words, this institution does not look at wellness and prevention strategically and hence misses many opportunities. It needs this program in order to expand the scope of the organization’s service. The introduction of wellness and prevention in the Machealth Health Care institution will help it in several strategic ways. For instance, it can use it in retail opportunities, community health improvement, health risk management, and clinical integration and continuum expansion. The health care organization can also use the wellness program as a marketing tool.

How Machealth Health Care organization can market wellness and prevention programs

According to Van Zee (2009), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) controls the marketing of prescription drugs. This regulatory body also ensures that adverts and promotions of drug prescriptions are truthful, balanced, and well communicated (Hawkes, 2007). However, Van Zee (2009) argues that the FDA has limited oversight of advertising and the promotion of controlled drugs (Van Zee, 2009). The Machealth Health Care organization should take advantage of this and market prevention and wellness programs. This will require the integrated involvement of its medical care professionals, patients, caregivers, and families combined. The close coordination between the above-mentioned parties can help the organization to market the wellness and prevention programs. The company should follow the following steps;

1. The second step is to plan and assess the program. The health care organization should create a plan of marketing the program based on its goals. For instance, it can integrate education and physical activities to keep its health care professionals, patients, caregivers, and families engaged in the program. It should also develop a wellness and prevention committee to create and follow the timelines of the program.
2. The first step is to build support. Considering that the Machealth organization has never considered introducing a wellness and prevention program, it should start by with a culture of wellness and prevention in its operations.
3. The third step is promoting the program and activities to employees. The marketers should also get involved in discussing different incentives and rewards to influence all parties to participate in the implementation of the program. The Machealth Care organization should communicate the plan efficiently by encouraging and reinforcing it at all levels of the institution. This should include integrating social media advertisements and other promotional tools to create awareness (Healey & Marchese, 2006).
4. The fourth step is to implement the prevention and wellness program. This should include selecting the most relevant track for the health care institution.
5. The fifth step is to evaluate the program. This will help the Machealth Care organization to know whether the program is effective in meeting the goals set by the marketers.
6. The next step is to share the results of the program’s success with health care professionals, patients, caregivers, and families engaged in the program.
7. The last step is to sustain the prevention and wellness program in the organization. The Machealth Care institution should locate additional funds, maintain buy-in, and leverage the prevention and wellness program.

The potential risks or drawbacks from changing or expanding the scope of the organization’s service line, in order to reach new markets

There are several potential risks associated with changing the scope of the Machealth Care’s services line in reaching new markets. These include choosing the wrong solutions, internal resistance, and incurring extra costs such as time, money, and training. For instance, if the marketers of the Machealth organization integrate wrong strategies and assume that they will help in the implementation of wellness and prevention marketing programs, the health care institution may incur huge losses. Moreover, if the health care professionals, patients, caregivers, and families engaged in the program fail to adopt the new change, the marketing of the prevention and wellness program can be a wasted effort.

References

Hawkes, C. (2007). Regulating Food Marketing to Young People Worldwide: Trends and Policy Drivers. American Journal of Public Health, 97(11), 1062-1072.

Healey, B.J., & Marchese, M. (2006). The use of marketing tools to increase participation in worksite wellness programs. Academy of Health Care Management, 2(4), 75-84.

Labiris, G., & Niakas, D. (2005). Demand management and the EU healthcare market integration. Journal of Medical Marketing, 5(1), 32-35.

Levy, J. (2007). Demographic changes in Europe: Opportunity or threat? Journal of Medical Marketing,7(4), 287-293.

Van Zee, A. (2009). The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy. American Journal of Public Health. 99(2), 221-227.