Modern society, guided by humanistic goals, strives to expand access to healthcare for all population segments. Particularly vulnerable are people with disabilities, veterans and their families, and the elderly, supported by non-profit organizations such as Easterseals. This company has offices throughout the country and provides various medical and social services in treatment, rehabilitation, mental health support, employment, and housing assistance (Watson, 2020). The mission of Easterseals is to achieve equity and equal life, work, and health opportunities for people in disadvantaged positions (Watson, 2020). Since Easterseals is a non-profit organization, the primary funding sources are private donations and government grants and programs. The company serves about 1.3 million people annually in all states (Watson, 2020). In medicine, Easterseals provides programs in health monitoring, therapy and rehabilitative care, in-home care, inclusive childcare, and caregiving (Watson, 2020). The organization takes care of many people who need constant medical support, screening, and condition tracking.
Based on the Easterseals mission and focus on working with people needing constant care and physical and psychological condition tracking, the company is an ideal client for remote patient monitoring (RPM). RPM is a patient-centered, innovative healthcare strategy that aims to collect data, report, and evaluate the patient’s status since they are not in a clinical setting. It has many benefits, including reduced acute hospital events, better management of chronic conditions, lesser costs, more efficiency, and easy access to patient data (Thomas et al., 2021). However, the service needs a marketing initiative because it is an innovative approach that meets psychological resistance from medical workers and clients (Malasinghe et al., 2019). Staff must learn how to use the new system before it can become helpful. Healthcare providers will have to protect patients’ personal information (Malasinghe et al., 2019). Clients experience psychological difficulties as their data is constantly tracked and saved in cloud storage from where it can be stolen.
Using the RPM service has many advantages for both patients and medical staff. With RPM technology comes continuous far-off specialist care of patients, reduced hospitalizations, more accurate readings, early disease detection, and prevention of death (Malasinghe et al., 2019). Easterseal, the primary client for RPM, will benefit from it by lowering its costs and relieving the burden on the medical staff. For instance, Easterseals can reduce number of the visits for patients in remission if they do not show signs of disease exacerbation and cancel unnecessary in-home visits. Secondary clients are people who use Easterseals services and can get more precise care and better treatment outcomes in general. For example, patients with diabetes can get more accurate insulin intake recommendations and information on how their treatment and diet plan works before a scheduled doctor visit.
When compiling a marketing strategy for RPM, it is necessary to consider the “four P’s” of marketing – product, price, place, and promotion. The service meets client needs, and pricing per patient per year can range from 275 to 7963 dollars per year, with an average range of 1000-2000 dollars (Malasinghe et al., 2019). As technology advances, the cost of using services will decrease; therefore, RPM is a valuable investment. Collaboration with large organizations such as Easterseals will help host and promote the service as it will earn a high reputation and a level of trust for potential customers.
The marketing strategy for potential customers is based on increasing reliability and security in the health field, reducing the possibility of adverse outcomes. Demand for RPM technologies is driven by the objective circumstances of developing health crises. Since the number of people with chronic diseases and disability is growing in the modern world, the RPM market is predicted to grow from $53.6 billion to $175.2 billion by 2027 (Remote Patient Monitoring Market, 2022). The healthcare system is experiencing significant overload associated with an acute shortage of staff, which cannot be solved by additional hiring of workers, as this will only increase the cost of medicine.
References
Malasinghe, L. P., Ramzan, N., & Dahal, K. (2019). Remote patient monitoring: A comprehensive study. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, 10(1), 57-76.
Remote Patient Monitoring Market. Market Research Firm. (2022). Web.
Thomas, E. E., Taylor, M. L., Banbury, A., Snoswell, C. L., Haydon, H. M., Gallegos Rejas, V. M., Smith, A. C., & Caffery, L. J. (2021). Factors influencing the effectiveness of remote patient monitoring interventions: A realist review.BMJ Open, 11(8), e051844. Web.
Watson, S. Easterseals background information brief June, 2020 facts and stats regarding people with disabilities population, National Easter Seal Society. Web.