Marketing and Healthcare Organizations

Colin Gilligan, Robin Lowe

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138444409
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315348889
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Service Industry

The need for a more conscious, focused and proactive approach to the management of health-care organizations has increased substantially. One consequence of this is that health-care managers are having to look at managerial approaches and techniques that previously were the province of the private sector. Prominent among those is the whole area of marketing. This work takes a broad approach to the marketing process, highlighting some of the challenges that health-care managers and medical professionals are having to face. Having done this, the authors move on to examine some of the characteristics of good and bad management practice. It is against this background that, in subsequent chapters, they turn their attention to the question of marketing and how it might best contribute to the management of organizations throughout the health sector. Each chapter includes questions and checklists offering scope for applying marketing principles to primary and secondary health-care organizations of all types, sizes and specialities.

1

The challenges facing health care organizations

Having read this chapter, you should:

• understand the nature and significance of the challenges facing health care organizations
• have a better understanding of the factors that contribute to effective management
• have gained an insight into the quality of the management within your hospital or unit.

The need for a more conscious, focused and proactive approach to the management of health care organizations has increased substantially over the past few years. Because of this, we begin this book not by plunging straight into a detailed discussion of the marketing process, but by taking a far broader approach, in which we highlight some of the challenges that health care managers and clinicians are now having to face. Having done this, we move on to examine some of the characteristics of good and bad management practice. It is against this background that, in subsequent chapters, we turn our attention to the question of marketing and how it might best contribute to the management of organizations throughout the health care sector as we move towards the 21 st century.

However, before going any further, we should give emphasis to our belief that all staff, regardless of whetherthey are consultants, unit managers, nursing officers or support staff, should regard themselves as managers - at the very least of hospital equipment and resources; it is for this reason that throughout the book we use the term ‘health care manager.

Box 1.1 The short- and long-term challenges being faced by health care organizations

The six principal challenges that we are likely to face in the short term and the long term are:

Short-term challenges

1..........................................

2..........................................

3..........................................

4..........................................

5..........................................

6..........................................

Long-term challenges

1..........................................

2..........................................

3..........................................

4..........................................

5...........................................

6..........................................

THE CHALLENGES FACING HEALTH CARE MANAGERS

As a first step, refer to Box 1.1 and begin by identifying the six principal challenges that you believe you and the other members of the management team are likely to face and have to come to terms with in the short (i.e. the next 12 to 18 months) and then the longer term. (Note: In carrying out this exercise, you may find it useful to think about the questions at two levels: first, for the health care sector as a whole, and, second, for your own unit within this.)

Although the particular challenges faced will quite obviously vary - possibly significantly - from one part of the health care market to another, our work across the health care sector over the past few years has identified a number of areas that medical professionals and health care managers alike see as being of particular concern. These include:

• a greater accountability to seemingly evermore demanding health authorities
• increased patient choice greater patient expectations, both of health care in general and of each medical professional in particular
• greater financial pressures and a series of budgetary constraints
• a need for more attention to be paid to the question of image
• a need to decide more clearly upon the focus of the organization’s activity and, in particular, to decide upon how resources should be allocated to existing and new services
• whether some existing services should be pruned or dropped (de-marketed)
• the need for hospitals to develop more effective and possibly more mature relationships with general practices a need for more and better staff training and motivation
• an increase in the volume of paperwork
• computerization and data protection
• increased patient expectations and aggression, together with a greater willingness to complain
• the more formal processes for dealing with complaints
• the need for a more competitive philosophy setting and meeting targets
• the need for better internal and external communications
• the management of the relationship between health care managers and other staff
• issues of quality
• a changing relationship between the public and the private health care sectors
• the financial pressures created by higher technology solutions to medical problems
• the higher expectations by central government of the hospital or unit
• a series of structural changes within the health care marketplace
• increasing and excessive demands
• a series of demographic shifts, with growing numbers of elderly people a possible emphasis on throughput at the expense of quality
• the implications of the Patient’s Charter
• the difficulties of meeting Charter standards
• the need for better co-ordination between the service providers, such as the hospitals and community units
• the breakdown of the carer networks (the BMA estimates that if the NHS had to take the place of the informal carers, it would cost £34 billion)
• hospital discharge arrangements and care in the community
• the ethical questions that arise from issues such as pricing and a two-tier health service
• the NHS internal market and inter-Trust rivalry.

Although this is by no means an exhaustive list and, as we comment above, the relative importance of each of the points is likely to vary greatly from one hospital or unit to another, it highlights the nature and breadth of the change and challenge that the sector is currently facing and with which the management teams need to come to terms. From your viewpoint as a health care manager, the question that must be considered, of course, is how best each of these challenges can be managed. However, before trying to answer this, consider the questions in Box 1.2 and then ask yourself what message is beginning to emerge. Is it the case, for example, that the management team not only recognizes the nature and significance of the current and emerging challenges but has also begun to come to terms with them by means of a deliberate and strategic approach, or is it that there is a general reluctance to change old habits and working practices?

Box 1.2 Following on from the answers that you gave to the questions in Box 1.1:

1. To what extent have these challenges been given explicit recognition?
   
   
   
2. What specific plans exist to deal with them?
   
   
   
3. Has the responsiblity for dealing with these challenges been clearly allocated?
   
   
   

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD AND BAD MANAGEMENT

Over the past 50 years, a considerable amount has been written about the characteristics of good and bad management One result of this is that a series of initially general, but now increasingly specific, guidelines exist. However, before looking at some of these, consider the question in Box 1.3.

The reality, of course, is that it is difficult (if not impossible) to identify the six, or ten characteristics of good and bad management that will apply equally to every type and size of organization. What we can do, however, isto identify the sorts of area to which every organization, be it a hospital or a multinational manufacturer of foodstuffs or cars, needs to give serious consideration. Included within these are:

• a statement of the organization’s mission and overall purpose
• the development of strong and positive values that are understood and adhered to by all staff and which the members of the senior management team are not prepared to compromise
• the development of clear and realistic objectives, which, where possible, are agre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• The authors
• Preface
• Dedication Page
• 1 The challenges facing health care organizations
• 2 So what is marketing? (And how can it be applied to the health care sector?)
• 3 Developing a customer-centred health care organization
• 4 Customer satisfaction and the role of marketing information systems and market research
• 5 Environmental pressures and the parable of the boiled frog
• 6 Planning for success (part one): assessing your planning skills
• 7 Planning for success (part two)
• 8 Using the marketing audit to assess the true level of the organization’s capability
• 9 Developing the health care marketing mix
• 10 Setting the standards of customer care
• 11 Internal marketing, leadership and teamworking
• 12 Implementing the plan and making things happen
• 13 Thornham General Hospital
• Index