Introduction
It is evident that the healthcare industry is changing, and the factors impact the decisions regarding service lines of labor and delivery (L&D) centers as well. Marketing is crucial in this competitive niche, mainly because St. Anthony Medical Center aims to build a relationship with clients, who choose their L&D unit. This executive summary report provides insight into the external and internal factors that St. Anthony Medical Center should consider when preparing their new marketing strategy.
External and Internal Analysis
POWER SWOT method is applied to St. Anthony Medical Center L&D to identify critical components that the establishment can leverage in their marketing strategy. Table 1 provides a concise analysis of external and external factors including service line features and environmental changes that the marketing specialists should consider. More information can be gathered in regards to some patients, services that are frequently used, and questions that customers ask in regards to specific features, which would provide more insight into the matter.
Table 1. The SWOT analysis for St. Anthony Medical Center L&D (created by the author).
POWER assessment provides the following data – within the SWOT table each threat has a percentage of importance, which represents the weighting of each factor. The personal experience involves the competency of Richard Holmes, the newly appointed marketing director who will be responsible for enabling the strategy. It can be concluded that the L&D department will benefit from his knowledge and experience, considering his background and specialty; thus, it is a strength.
The order of the strengths and weaknesses is considered carefully in this SWOT analysis. Thus, the internal factors cohesively summarize the components that St. Andrew’s Medical Center can affect. The emphasis of detail is presented through a thorough explanation of each category. The rank and prioritize factor is executed through the percentage of importance in the opportunity category.
For the external environment assessment, the SWOT approach is applied. Firstly, the Minneapolis Metropolitan Area has the following medical centers that offer labor and delivery services, the Mother and Baby Birth Center and Minnesota Birth Center included. This information provides an understanding of the competition that exists in the market of L&D. Patients can choose from a variety of clinics that offer high-quality services; thus St. Andrews should focus on strengthening its position and on building a customer relationship. Therefore, based on this information and SWOT one can assume that L&D is a highly competitive niche that experiences a rise in consumer demands.
Healthcare Marketing Issues
Currently, St. Antony Medical Canter chooses to market its L&D unit by emphasizing the quality of services and multiple levels of care. However, the SWOT analysis revealed the need to focus on social media, technology, and additional services to improve relationships with customers. This approach is necessary because according to Silvis (2015), “the delivery of a child is often a young family’s first inpatient stay, bringing with it the potential to keep not just mom, but baby, dad, and siblings coming back for future healthcare needs” (para. 2).
Therefore, by attracting more prospective clients, the L&D unit will provide additional benefit to the entire hospital. Thus, St. Antony Medical Center should address the following issues in its marketing strategy – social media presence, customer satisfaction displayed in online reviews, and additional IT services for consumers.
Specific unknown data should be assessed and analyzed to identify whether the chosen strategy is useful. Oztekin (2018) states that components such as return on investment, hospital influence rate, the decision of mothers, the competitive market share should be considered as measures for achieving targeted outcomes. The chosen approach will ensure that St. Andrew’s Medical Center can benefit from the marketing initiative and will increase its profits by having more patents choose the facility.
Insight Regarding Crucial Marketing Components
Firstly, it is crucial to improve the state of customer satisfaction because as was articulated by the participants of the focus group, many prospective mothers search for reviews and ratings online. According to Hawkins et al. (2016) “patients routinely use Twitter to share feedback about their experience receiving healthcare” (p. 404). Currently, St. Andrews has an 82 level of customer satisfaction, which will be improved. Hawkins et al. (2016) recommend using Twitter for receiving fast feedback from consumers and replying to their questions and concerns. Thus, the L&D unit should increase its social media presence and establish a communication channel, which will help market the services to the audience of millennials.
The relevant performance indicators are – improved customer satisfaction, online presence on at least one social media platform, positive reviews regarding the L&D department on online resources, additional services such as applications and videos.
As was previously mentioned, the purpose of this strategy is to attract more patients to this hospital, because after experiencing the services at L&D individuals and their families will be more likely to choose St. Andrew’s (Silvis, 2015). Therefore, the hospital will be able to receive a decent return on investment form this endeavor by increasing the overall profit of the facility. Primarily, St. Andrews will have to invest in the development of mobile applications as well as in hiring a videographer and a social media specialist.
One strategy for achieving targeted outcomes is understanding the perception of patients, which is crucial for creating a sustainable marketing campaign. Saviano, Bassano, Piciocchi, Di Nauta, and Lettieri (2018) state that healthcare organizations can monitor viability by assessing stakeholder’s perspectives. The authors offer a Systems Viability Monitoring Model for Sustainability as an approach that St. Andrews can apply to ensure that the establishment an overcome issues are mentioned in the previous section of this paper.
Conclusion
Overall, this executive report summarizes the external and internal factors that should be considered when preparing the marketing strategy for the L&D unit at St. Andrews. The primary finding is that the establishment should focus on social media to communicate with clients and attract prospective patients to the L&D department. Also, information technology and services such as applications and videos should be added to the service line, which should help improve customer satisfaction.
References
Hawkins, J. B., Brownstein, J. S., Tuli, J., Runels, T., Broeker, K., Nsoesie, E. O., … Greaves, F. (2016). Measuring patient-perceived quality of care in US hospitals using Twitter. BMJ Quality & Safety, 25(6), 404.
Oztekin, A. (2018). Creating a marketing strategy in the healthcare industry: A holistic data analytic approach. Annals of Operations Research, 270(1-2). 361-382.
Saviano, M., Bassano, C., Piciocchi, P., Di Nauta, P., & Lettieri, M. (2018). Monitoring viability and sustainability in healthcare organizations. Sustainability, 10(10), 3548.
Silvis, J. (2015). Little things: Designing for labor, delivery, and beyond.