Introduction
East Chestnut Regional Health System (ECRHS) was formed from the merger of three other organizations, which was supposed to improve the efficiency and raise the level of all three organizations, as each faced different problems. This hospital was born out of the need to modernize the facilities and the need for assistance to reach more consumers, which is the hospital’s mission.
Mission and Objectives
The vision for ECRHS is to become the leading healthcare organization on the east coast of Chestnut. ECRHS aims to rebrand, deliver value-based customer service, and reallocate the company’s assets to invest in areas where it matters most (Defusco, & Lambkin, 2017). The objectives of the ECRHS are thus to cover areas such as services for women, cancer patients, medical technology, investment in quality healthcare professionals, and safety for consumers. Improving retail and marketing strategies, including lean management processes, to counter negative impacts are essential goal as well. In addition, the removal of accountable care, increased use of medical aviation, and closure of the regional burn unit, mental health services, and AH will be necessary. Their desire for change involves choosing a marketing strategy, such as a target market, which will allow them to remove existing customer dissatisfaction now.
Organizational Structure and Culture
The ECRHS management team includes both professionals with average experience and professionals approaching retirement age. The leadership contains leaders who first joined ECRHS and leaders who moved to ECRHS through the merger process. These leaders are called the ‘old regime.’ Each location still operates according to the organization’s pre-merger cultural identity. That, in turn, affects the organization’s current healthcare marketing strategy, as there is no centralized system.
Since ECRHSS was created from the merger of the Northern Mountain Consortium (NMHC), Archway Hospital (AH), and East River Medical Center (ERMC), it makes sense to stick to a decentralized type of organizational infrastructure. Their impact on the current healthcare marketing strategy is reflected differently in each division. The current form of organizational infrastructure it uses (centralized) has made it not preferred by people (Purcarea, 2019). In addition, the case study states that the hospital has an average bed occupancy of 55% and is managed by two administrative staff. Therefore, when it is transformed into a decentralized form the hospital will perform better than before.
Current Marketing Strategies
Services that ECRHS could benefit from expanding, improving, or partnering. ECRHS can also benefit from young health professionals; their aging cardiologist and turnover of orthopedic providers are noteworthy. Increasing the staff of experienced professionals will increase customer satisfaction and the overall level of organization (Schultz, Zehir, & Kitappci, 2020). Ending mental health services would be beneficial as it lost a vast financial income. Outpatient marketing services and service lines would be useful for ECRHS.
Financial Analysis
The Eastern Chestnut Regional Health System (ECRHS) caters to various patient populations. It provides a wide range of services, from Level 1 trauma to critical access hospitals and hospitals specializing in osteopathy. Of the entire system of insurance services, 30% is accounted for by commercial organizations, which include ECRHS, which accounts for 20%. However, ECRHS is losing market share to the commercial Banford Medical Center (BMC) hospital, which has capitalized on ECRHS’s weaknesses and leadership. It implies cooperation with insurance companies, which can improve the organization’s financial situation.
However, some businesses are indeed found to perform better in some areas than in others. Many additions have been made to make the transition more inclusive and convenient for everyone. ECRHS has an orthopedic hospital, two outpatient surgical centers, and imaging centers with radiologists. In addition, ECRHS purchased 100 acres of land to improve interstate communications, directly impacting the organization’s financial success. It would be an additional benefit for this community when a new medical center, including medical offices, is built across the road.
Competitive Advantage
ERMC continues to be the only Level 1 trauma facility in the region with air travel. In addition, by combining three hospitals, the capacity of inpatient beds exceeds the closest competitor. The organization must improve its offerings to women to remain competitive in this area (Lyu, 2019). Female doctors also need to be hired as more women choose female doctors for their health problems. The department needs to improve productivity and eliminate older doctors, which is one of the significant weaknesses of the organization today. However, despite the challenges, ERMC maintains state-of-the-art IT support. Leaders’ commitment to expanding the organization’s service offerings will enable ERMC to rebuild its reputation through targeted branding that provides a competitive advantage. That, in turn, will attract top medical talent and appeal to the preferred target audience.
Current Value Chain
The decentralization of control allowed the combined hospitals to operate independently. Thus, the three merged hospitals still exist as separate hospitals, which affects the overall picture of the financial and ethical state of ERMC. Particularly important to give services that compete with competitors, so patients always want to contact ECRHS (Romero, 2019). Therefore, checking which services and products provide competitors is necessary, as constantly improving work at ECRHS. Usage innovation by offering first-class services from highly qualified staff, with the best medical equipment accompanying short-time expectations and optimal patient results, will become a core component of the value chain.
Target Market
Before ECRHS can even begin to focus on profits, they must first focus on attracting a patient client base. The target client group is women of childbearing children and people with an average income of $38,000 in nearby counties. The target market will be the local communities and fire and rescue services to increase the volume of rescue services (Kruk et al., 2018). Finally, ECRHS will aim at the medical schools, local universities, and local cardiologists to increase state employees.
External Environmental Factors
Environmental threats such as competition, population, and more will always affect our marketing success. Because most products/services are more attractive to some demographics, trends that indicate changes in the number or type of people affect marketing. A strategy for future changes will be formed depending on the selected target group.
Conclusion
The Eastern Chestnut Regional Health System is committed to re-establishing its presence in the community as a top leader in healthcare. The merging of these three independent systems has been difficult over the years. However, with the appointment of a new management team striving for better results, ECRHSS will serve its patients again. The organization understands the importance of employee and customer satisfaction, identifying the target market to create sustainable financial and ethical systems.
References
Defusco, L. & Lambkin, M. (2017). Corporate rebranding: Building transferring or creating brand equity. Web.
Kruk, M. E., Gage, A. D., Arsenault, C., Jordan, K., Leslie, H. H., Roder-DeWan, S., Adeyi, O., Barker, P., Daelmans, B., Doubova, S. V., English, M., García-Elorrio, E., Guanais, F., Gureje, O., Hirschhorn, L. R., Jiang, L., Kelley, E., Lemango, E. T., Liljestrand, J., … Pate, M. (2018). High-quality health systems in the Sustainable Development Goals Era: Time for a revolution. Web.
Lyu, H. G. (2019). Domestic role and career satisfaction for physician mothers in procedural vs Nonprocedural Fields. Web.
Purcarea, V. L. (2019). The impact of marketing strategies in Healthcare Systems. Web.
Romero, G. (2019). How can we grow patient care? Web.
Schultz, A., Zehir, C., & Kitappci, H. (2020). The side effects of brand experiences, trust, and satisfaction on building brand loyalty; empirical research on global brands. Web.