Journal of hospital marketing最新文献

The hospital industry nationwide has undergone tremendous changes over the past several years. As a result, hospitals have had to develop new marketing strategies for survival, diversifying their services and seeking new non-hospital sources of revenue. This case study focuses on the successful development of the Family Health Corners, a pair of primary care medical practices sponsored by Mount Sinai Medical Center (Chicago) and located inside Zayre Department Stores.

The authors examine service firm employee attitudes towards wellness programs among twenty-three service companies in three states. Program components that were considered to be most desirable by service industry workers are identified in a regression model. The results indicate that hospital administrators need to adopt a marketing approach during the design phase of employee wellness programs.

This paper serves as a survey of how hospitals are looking for new and innovative ways to market their hospital (E.R.) to the consumer. Traditionally, the Emergency Department in a hospital was the area that consistently lost money. Today more than ever, MBA's and other business professionals are being hired by hospitals in order to reverse this spiraling trend. This paper deals with hospitals across the U.S. who have employed many new and exciting ways of marketing a service to the consumer in a way that has never been done before.

The acceptance and use of marketing techniques and concepts in the health care area is a phenomenon well known to most marketers. Prior to 1979, marketing in the health care field was relatively unknown. Since that time, however, the growth of health care marketing has not been accompanied by commensurate growth in marketing research efforts.

It has been observed that enrollees in managed care systems such as health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and preferred provider organizations (PPOs) have lower utilization rates and lower expenditures than those in conventional fee-for-service health insurance programs. To date, no study has investigated this issue by examining providers. This paper studies whether lower cost hospitals are more likely to sign contracts with HMOs and PPOs and thus explain the observed lower utilization rates and lower expenditures by HMO and PPO enrollees. A logistic regression is applied to the data from the 1988 AHA Annual Survey of Hospitals. The results show that private hospitals, teaching hospitals, hospitals accredited by JCAHO, hospitals with high case mix index, and hospitals located in MSAs are more likely to contract with HMOs and PPOs than their counterparts. If hospitals with these characteristics have higher costs, then the results do not suggest that hospital costs can explain the lower utilizations and lower expenditures by HMO and PPO enrollees.

With the introduction of the Prospective Payment System, hospital accountants' role changed from reimbursement maximizers to an important role in decision making. Faced with increased competition, hospitals are installing financial controls. Hospital marketers are also engaging in external promotional and health awareness campaigns and expanding their services to stabilize income and reduce the effects of a changing environment. Thus, hospitals operate in a more competitive environment with increasing uncertainty. When faced with uncertainty, organizations often believe that they must convince society that their existence is legitimate. Increasing specialization and organizational complexity in health care professions have made the expert important. Experts, such as the role assumed by hospital accountants and physicians, maintain power because the organization depends on them for their special skills and information. Marketing should also develop an internal marketing program to reach these power influencers. Scarce resource coupled with uncertainty move hospital accountants as experts into the power equation in the changing control of the U.S. healthcare system. Previously, the physician was the major source of hospital power. Since accountants often serve as monitors of scarce resources, information about the resource allocation directly affects the distribution of power. Marketers should acknowledge that this places hospital accountants in a critical role of assisting their institutions in adapting to a new environment.