Introduction
The field of public relations is relatively new. However, over the course of its history, the concepts and ideas of public relations, as well as its strategies and methods have made their ways to a multitude of various industries and sphered. As one of the most significant and important industries in any country in the world, healthcare welcomed public relations. In fact, the healthcare industry is one of the fields suffering from poor reputations. As a result, the means, concepts, and ideas practiced and employed in public relations for the purpose of achieving and maintaining more effective communication are highly useful in this area. The major focus of the present paper is the development and performance of PR in healthcare. Such topics as history, specificity, and unique activities and features of public relations in healthcare will be explored in the sections below.
PR in Healthcare
Unfortunately, healthcare is one of the industries where practitioners, organizations, and services persistently tend to face problems related to the lack of a good reputation. Medical workers are known to be perceived quite negatively by their clients and by the other members of the general public who potentially could become the users of healthcare services. In particular, many individuals and groups share negative ideas about medical practitioners. Usually, such ideas position doctors and nurses as people unable to communicate properly with their clients, lacking compassion and understanding of emotions of their patients, and, generally, cold and unresponsive (Tomic, Lasic, & Tomic, 2010).
Consequently, PR in healthcare started to develop very soon after the sphere appeared. Its development was similar to that in many other industries. However, healthcare is unique because the reputation management and communication maintenance of PR is linked to what is usually at stake in this sphere – people’s lives, health, and well-being (Tomic et al., 2010). Moreover, the industry suffers from the negative reputation of both external and internal audiences – care receivers and care providers. Practically, healthcare PR has many objectives, the most vital of which are the improvement of the quality of care, the establishment of a good reputation, and the reduction of cost of care.
The specificity of Healthcare PR
As was mentioned in the previous section, the sphere of healthcare PR is unique due to several factors such as the extremely high stakes and the existing negative reputation of organizations and practitioners (Tomic et al., 2010). The latter is the opposite of what medical professionals’ actual functions represent. As a result, in the contemporary medical organizations, PR practitioners serve as some of the most critical professionals as they are responsible for the maintenance of productive communication between the facilities and their clients. Knowing how high the importance of such communication is, the spokespeople might find themselves under a lot of pressure.
Due to the specificity of this sphere and its current focus on the patient-centered, holistic approach, the role of communicators with the general public became rather complex. This is the case because PR specialists in healthcare are to ensure two-sided communication not only between the organizations and care receivers but also between facilities and their staff members. The latter is critical because the healthcare industry is severely understaffed in some specialties and suffers from a skills shortage (Tomic et al., 2010).
Advantages and Disadvantages of Working in This Career Field
One of the major advantages of working in healthcare PR is the significance of this job and the impact a spokesperson for a medical organization is able to produce. It can be rather rewarding, to take over communication and reputation improvement that is designed to make health care available to more groups of the population and enable it to address public health needs that used to be gaps. At the same time, this type of public relations is linked to a great deal of stress.
This is the case because conflicts in healthcare organizations that usually impact their reputation and prevent productive communication with clients are associated with the harm done to one or more people due to the low quality of care, insufficient communication, or slow management (Tomic et al., 2010). For these reasons, the spokespersons working in healthcare public relations are usually the ones to provide opinions and conclusions about sensitive subjects in public. Practically, even a minor loss of focus of a PR professional working in healthcare can jeopardize the performance of the entire organization and, in turn, endanger more clients.
Activities Involved
Healthcare PR is a broad sphere that involves a wide range of activities. In fact, such activities may vary from the promotion of medications and pharmaceutical treatments to healthcare personnel to the provision of support to organizations and their services (Morris & Goldsworthy, 2015). Discussing the nature of work in healthcare PR, Chew (2013) noticed that PR specialists are doctors as well, in some ways, as they are responsible for curing connections. Moreover, in the environments as hasty and stressful as those of healthcare facilities, it is vital for a group of PR professionals to establish clear communication with the clients when confusing situations occur.
The activities of PR professionals mainly involve the promotion of goods and services offered by healthcare organizations for which they work. Additionally, PR professionals are also responsible for the maintenance of organizational reputations and images among the members of the general public, as well as the potential and existing staff members. In other words, an organization’s credibility and name recognition are the responsibilities of their PR professionals (Dodge, 2018).
Salaries and Specialized Skills
Brand building is one of the major skills required in this PR sphere. The specificity of brand building in healthcare is the increased legal responsibility due to the high stakes that are always in place when it comes to medicine (Dodge, 2018). It goes without saying that, just like in any other PR sphere, leadership, teamwork, and collaboration, as well as communication skills, represent a set of the most critical requirements for a successful professional. When it comes to salaries, healthcare PR professionals can earn between $50000 and $100000 (“Browse average salary,” 2018). At the same time, Strong (2018) reports the median healthcare and pharma PR salary to be as high as $132000. The salary depends on the exact position, duties, organization, and qualifications of a professional.
Prospects for the Future
As most of the contemporary industries become more active as communicators and attempt to include their clients in quality improvement processes, PR becomes a detrimental profession. Public relations is a relatively young and dynamically developing area that welcomes new professionals and introduces new methods and strategies on a regular basis. In order to stay relevant in this career field, a PR practitioner has to embrace life-long learning and keep on track with all the recent changes in their industry. PR is particularly important in modern societies with their increased connectivity and the need for ongoing communication between industries, businesses, organizations, and their clients. In the future, the field of healthcare PR is likely to expand attracting more professionals.
Case Studies
In the article by Tomic et al. (2010), the authors mention two PR cases that occurred in Croatia where healthcare organizations were unable to communicate the reasons for their failed performance. As a result, a conclusion was made by the patients that the negative outcomes of the treatments they had received were caused by low-quality care and medical errors. Later, investigations were carried out that proved that the medical professionals involved in both cases were not at fault. However, precious time was lost, and due to the lack of communication, the involved healthcare organizations and professionals were affected negatively in terms of their reputations. Such situations contribute to the overall perception of healthcare organizations, services, and service providers by the community.
Critical Thoughts
Based on the research carried out for this paper, I can notice that the field of healthcare PR is definitely not as well-known and commonly discussed as media, political, sports, or entertainment PR. At the same time, the poor image and negative perceptions of healthcare professionals and organizations are a recognized problem that has affected most people. From personal experience, I can remember many situations in which I felt a bias towards certain medical facilities and personnel due to stereotypes or judgments. In reality, the purpose of medicine has the provision of help and care as its core goals and values. This means that fixing this serious gap is a necessity for most modern societies. For this reason, I am interested in this area of PR and could see it like a sphere that I would like to research deeper to gain more understanding of its unique features and aspects.
References
Browse average salary ranges for public relations jobs in the healthcare industry.(2018). Web.
Chew, R. Z. (2013). The fundamentals of public relations: A practical overview of the art and business of public relations. Los Angeles, CA: BookBaby.
Dodge, B. (2018). The role of healthcare PR agencies. Web.
Morris, T., & Goldsworthy, S. (2015). PR today: The authoritative guide to public relations. New York, NY: Macmillan International Higher Education.
Strong, F. (2018). What PR salaries look like in 2016. Web.
Tomic, Z., Lasic, D., Tomic, T. (2010). Public relations in health care. Materia Socio Medica, 22(1), 25-27.