HCO”s Marketing and Strategic Planning Process

What is the role of healthcare marketing in an HCO’s strategic planning process? Provide an example. Be sure to identify and discuss basic marketing elements.

Select a healthcare organization you are familiar with and advise that organization on ways it can market its services. (HCO choice is at your discretion)

Please cite all references.
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When this Post came in, I contacted administration asking for more information about Griffith et al’s definition of “multicorporate structure” and the specific “marketing elements” that these authors refer to as they often vary across authors and researchers in such things as the number of elements, the importance given to each element, and the likes.

However, since your deadline is tomorrow, July 27, 2004, I have decided to do this question with the material feeling confident that it will be very similar to your text leaving it up to you to make the minor changes in terminology, if necessary.

Please see the response attached and if there is a large discrepancy between what your text says and the sources from which I have drawn, feel free to contact me as I am sure we can work it out. I have cited all references. You may want to check this site out http://www.federatedpress.com/products/bookads/WebHealth.htm which explains various technological marketing strategies. I added another resource “Georgia” attached which gives a good description of many HCOs in United States.

I hYou have two questions and I will answer them in the order that you presented them. We will be using the same HCO example for both.

1. “What is the role of healthcare marketing in an HCO’s strategic planning process? Provide an example. Be sure to identify and discuss basic marketing elements”.

Marketing Strategy and HCO’s strategic Planning (see attachment “Corporate Planning” and “Prince Edward Island”) go hand in hand. Marketing strategy is one aspect of the Strategic Planning (i.e., Business plan, Marketing strategy, Financial Strategy, Monitoring Strategy). Planning is not a sterile, structured process, but an essential and dynamic way to think about the consumer, the customer, the competitor and your own company’s competencies. Saying that though, the general role of all marketing strategies is to market and sell the product of their organization. Specifically, the HCO uses marketing strategies to market their product, i.e., pharmaceutical products, doctor services, information about healthcare products, etc.). However, it is important to put the marketing strategy together into a plan that helps deliver your goals and encourage learning in the organization from its marketing actions.
According to York University (http://www.execdev.schulich.yorku.ca/ssb-extra/ded.nsf/791634364296644185256b7700127f6b/049e57633d1953cf85256b570077b106?OpenDocument), the key concepts in contemporary marketing are:
o Customer & prospect understanding
o Brands & branding strategy
o Integration of your marketing approach
This is where it gets tricky, as authors vary in their approaches to marketing. I have highlighted the areas (see attachment) of the initiatives and marketing strategies employed in our example HCO. Their strategic planning includes the business plans, initiatives, the marketing strategy, the financial strategies, the target client or persons, research and evaluation strategies, and the likes. See the initiative section (highlighted in blue) for the marketing strategies and methods employed by this particular HCO (i.e., Client and referral management, …