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Biomedical subjects

R S MacStravic

Publications and source records attributed to R S MacStravic.

53 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

Marketing by managing relationships.

As competition increases and funding tightens, hospitals will have to realize that marketing largely is the managing of relationships--relationships between health care consumers and the provider. Prospective payment will make a hospital's fiscal viability increasingly sensitive to volume; stable profitability will depend on a steady level of patient utilization. And to ensure stable utilization, the hospital must create a base of loyal patients. Four marketing strategies can help to build this client base: 1. Create a strong care of essential services focused on the most significant customer needs. 2. Customize relationships by tailoring specific services to specific market segments' special needs. 3. Augment the basic service by offering extras and amenities. 4. Offer price incentives for people to become loyal customers. At least four types of patient loyalty exist, and a hospital should concentrate on fostering one or more types among its patients. Service loyalty occurs when a person always goes to the same provider for the same service. Provider loyalty exists when a person seeks a diversity of related services from the same provider. Family loyalty occurs when an entire family uses a particular provider. Organizational loyalty exists when an entire organization is oriented--through a contract or preferred provider arrangement, for example--toward a specific provider.

Community-Institutional Relations↗
PubMed1984

Marketing health services: the engineering of satisfaction.

Service marketing is the engineering of satisfaction, and the key to success is to identify and influence potential customers' expectations and then to fulfill those expectations. Patient satisfaction largely determines both a program's revenues and expenditures and the effectiveness of care received by patients. A program's ability to satisfy patients rests upon three basic elements: research, design, and communication. Research should be on two levels. The first is basic market assessment and analysis, and should reveal overall market potential by focusing on consumers' expectations, unmet needs, and level of satisfaction. From this stage of research, the organization should be able to identify current programs that are secure and stable, those which have significant growth potential, those which are threatened by competition, and those which have little future. This research also should indicate the potential for new programs and for new markets for existing programs. The second level of research focuses on a specific program (whether current or proposed) and is the basis for program design. The organization can tailor the program to consumers' expectations in everything from services provided to price of parking and other amenities. Research also provides a basis for communications. Not only can communications influence a potential customer to try a provider, but also care providers can use communications during and after the service experience to reinforce what might have been a casual decision. Ideally, all communication that occurs between patients and providers should serve marketing as well as diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. It can shape patients' expectations, reinforce satisfaction when those expectations have been fulfilled, and convey the provider's caring and concern.

Consumer Behavior↗
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Are you getting the most from your HMO enrollees?

Competition among health maintenance organizations (HMOs) continues to grow and their chief marketing focus is what they can offer and deliver to consumers. But, writes R. Scott MacStravic, Ph.D., there is another side to the coin that is equally important: what might consumers offer and deliver to the HMO as loyal, supportive enrollees?

Community Participation↗
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Promises, promises.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Communication↗
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An early warning technique.

During budget preparation, forecasts of inpatient utilization for the coming year play a pivotal role. Use of ancillary services and nursing care is a function of the number of admissions and patient days expected. With DRG payment, the average length of stay has decreased, as has the amount of ancillary service per case. Utilization experience should be reviewed after the budget utilization forecast is made. If it is likely to be lower than the forecast, management should respond as soon as possible. The earlier these responses are made, the more effective they are.

Analysis of Variance↗
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CHIPS: a health care system for the future.

The Comprehensive Health/Integrated Provider System (CHIPS) is a vertically integrated care delivery model that enables hospitals to maintain or increase market share by sponsoring the widest possible range of health-related services. These include long-term care, dental care, fitness promotion, sleep disturbance therapy--virtually any service that can be incorporated in a system of providers. The CHIPS model can be modified to focus on a specific segment of the population rather than attempting to serve as many people as possible. This focus could be based on geographic considerations or on some demographic or health characteristic of the targeted population segment. Three basic strategies are available for choosing CHIPS locations. Providers can be consolidated in a single campus, or a loose network of services can be scattered throughout the area. Midway between these two strategies is the satellite approach, whereby CHIPS providers offer their services shopping center-style in one or more locations; this approach could be used either in addition to or instead of the campus strategy. A CHIPS may establish financial links with its patients through such insurance models as prepaid group practices or health maintenance organizations based on independent practice associations. Such links can provide significant price advantages on insured items sold to patients without exposing the hospital to antitrust liability. Other advantages of a CHIPS are that it can build patient loyalty (its chief purpose) and strengthen ties with the medical staff.

Catchment Area, Health↗
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Therapeutic pampering.

Some might view catering to patient wants and desires as a recent marketing necessity that competes or even conflicts with traditional obligations to render quality patient care. Studies have demonstrated, however, the "pampering" patients adds significantly to quality as measured by patient attitudes and even outcomes of care. Continuity and compliance are both enhanced through intelligent pampering. It is in the best interests of both patients and professionals to identify and respond to patient wants and desires as well as needs. Specific patterns of patient-professional interaction that promote satisfaction are presented. The best approach to pampering, however, requires research into the very patients being and intended to be served, in addition to relying on published literature and our own insights.

Consumer Behavior↗
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Demonstrating value. Healthcare organizations can document positive outcomes from their community-benefit services.

When challenged to demonstrate their contributions to the community, Catholic and other not-for-profit hospitals have traditionally reported the sum of their charity care, free programs, and unprofitable services. But critics of tax-exempt healthcare now say this is insufficient and ask such hospitals for descriptions of the outcomes of their contributions. There are seven basic measures for gauging outcomes: participation, mind states, behavior, health status, sickness care utilization, sickness care expenditures, and community value. Some of these measures will, when used singly, fail to produce clear and convincing results. Moreover, all of them must be accompanied by a foundation for attribution. Finally, the hospital must be able to show that the outcomes have significant value for the community. But documenting the complete set of effects is worth the effort spent on it. Hospitals that carefully weigh the results of their contributions increase the likelihood that their community will truly benefit from them, and will themselves benefit from their ability to show that this is so.

Catholicism↗