Introduction
Market orientation has seen the improvement of hospitals’ services. Patients are receiving fair services thus few cases of collision with between the staff and the patients. It should therefore be encouraged and made an international goal. It has also boosted the level of employment and marked a certain standard of marketing. Hospital services have developed a sense of competition thus more quality in the provision of services. The type of hospital community orientation activity is a “community-based excellence enhancement” program. This involves the cooperation of hospitals with business, public health organizations, and others to improve public health status by the distribution of information on quality of care and costs.Thus a community orientation is the natural product of a commitment to progressive quality development (Stavins, 2004).
What created the change
The change was as a result of massive complaints of health cases.Provision of poor services that saw patients die when the alternative could have saved their lives. The public health organizations and NGO’s saw to it that the individual governments adhered to the complaints that involved health issues. This activity started in the more developed countries like the United Kingdom and proceeded to the developing countries. International agencies such as the World Health Organization fueled this change.This they did through aid of basic equipments and machinery and equipments. Doctors attended forums and went through further studies to acquire the knowledge and skills for this change. The business aspect also played a major role in this change. They contributed their skills in marketing to the health organizations (Fottler et. al, 2006).
How the quality of service changed and reasons for the change
Hospital provision of preventive and health support services became positively associated with joint project membership and network involvement, the distribution of such services among hospitals, the use of the public health status information, and hospital magnitude. Hospitals’ strategic importance changed considerably between the years; 1996-1997 and 2000-2001. Before this hospitals basically competed on price by means of “wholesale” strategies (Noonan & Savolaine, 2001).
Non-price competition was becoming adversely necessary and was enlivening “retail” strategies; this meant that provision of services to attract independent physicians and their patients. This change was due to the less than expected selective astringent and capitated compensation plans. The hospital market is more strenuous and price rivalry remains comparatively significant as compared to the 1970s (Nelson, Weeks & Campfield, 2008).
As a CEO of the Hospital, I would Approach the Marketing Issues as follows:
First and foremost, I will need to put into consideration the recent and updated marketing strategies. Issues such as marketing method, strategic planning that is effective enough to survive the competitive health market is highly essential. I will need to formulate plan with clearly stipulated objectives (Eastaugh, 2008).
The staff should be clearly aware of how to deal with the patients. This therefore would require that the staff be educated through forums and workshops so as to acquire the required strategic methods of dealing with the hospital market. With this, the aim is to attract more patients both at the outpatient and in patient departments. However one should consider the factors that are beyond them, this involves the marketing mix, that is; Product, Price, Promotion, and Place. Initial, hospital marketing has focused on those that they could control; Product, Promotion, Place. Coordinators and other associates are responsible for the price-setting process (Noonan & Savolaine, 2001).
References
Eastaugh, S. R. (2008). Diversification in the hospital industry [Electronic version]. Journal of Healthcare Finance, 34(4), 52-65. Web.
Fottler et. al, (2006). Comparing hospital staff and patient perceptions of customer service: A pilot study utilizing survey and focus group data. Health Services Management Research, 19(1), 52-66. Web.
Nelson, W. A., Weeks, W. B., & Campfield, J. M. (2008). The organization costs of ethical conflicts. Journal of Healthcare Management, 53(1), 41-53. Web.
Noonan, M. D. and Savolaine, R. (2001). A neighborhood of nations. Marketing Health Services 21 (4), 40. Web.
Stavins, C. L. (2004). Developing employee participation in the patient-satisfaction process. Journal of Healthcare Management, 49(2), 135-139. Web.