BUILDING BRAND IMAGE FOR HOSPITALS
BUILDING BRAND IMAGE FOR HOSPITALS
Friday, 14 September 2007 03:51
By G D Kunders
As opposed to conventional marketing, G D Kunders advocates total quality service, better staff-patient relationship and good facilities to build brand image of hospitals.
Quality is the only way to build an enduring brand name and brand image for any hospital. It is a business philosophy based on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is measured by the satisfaction that the patient derives from the service he receives. The real test of a patient’s satisfaction is the answer to the question: “Has the smile on the patient’s face been restored?” If the answer is “Yes”, the patient is satisfied, and the degree of his satisfaction is proportionate to what degree or extent his needs and expectations have been met.
The success of a hospital is often measured - and wrongly so - by the high numbers of patients it treats or by the jingling of its cash register. The real test of any hospital is the quality of healthcare it provides. If the hospital has to pass this test - a truly rugged test - it must provide total quality service that will ‘delight’ the patient, not ‘just satisfy’ him.
In the parlance of total quality management (TQM) people, a patient is delighted when the service he has received far exceeds his expectations. It is a ‘service plus’ - a blend of high quality professional service and compassionate patient care - that wins the hearts of people. Clearly there is no substitute for courteous, caring attitude and compassionate patient care. As a matchless way of building a brand name and brand image, it maintains excellent image and reaches out to larger number of people than does conventional marketing.
‘Consumers’ in hospitals, if we may call them, like consumers in general, are becoming more and more quality conscious. Constantly let down and deceived by quality failure in almost everything that touches their daily lives, consumers everywhere are becoming increasingly intolerant of goods and services of poor quality. And what is worse, the loss arising from poor quality is invariably borne by the hapless consumers themselves. Hospital services are no exception.
On the other hand, quality is far more important in hospitals than in a manufacturing company. For example, a defective piece of surgery, a negligent act of a doctor, a nurse or a technician can put the health, happiness, even the life of the patient in a jeopardy. Like in the case of the ophthalmologist in Hyderabad some years ago, who by mistake removed the good eye of a little girl instead of the cancerous eye, thereby rendering her blind for life. Examples can be multiplied. And what is worse, hospitals that deal with life and death situations don’t give any guarantee or warrantee as the manufacturing companies do.
Today’s patients are better informed about healthcare. At no time in history, have people known so much about healthcare and medicine as they do today. For this reason, they shop and select the best hospital and top quality treatment regardless of the cost. When it comes to the question of health, people want quality whatever it takes.
This concept of total quality service in hospitals forms the very core of my book, titled “How to Market Your Hospital without Selling Your Philosophy.” However, there is an important difference - a very significant one at that - between the service in hospitals (and other service organisations) and the manufacturing firms as far as quality is concerned. Service organisations must ensure that their service is of good quality, they must also ensure that their delivery is pleasing to the customer.
In other words, how the service is delivered is as important, if not more important, than what is delivered. In the manufacturing industry, the customer is remote. The manufacturer and his customer may never meet. Not so in service organisations. The service provider and the recipient meet face to face and there is what is called an ‘interface’ between them.
For example, the doctor and the patient, the waiter and the diner, the teller in the bank and the customer. They interact. Hospitals may have to manage multiple interfaces. If the service provider doesn’t interact properly, the customer will be upset and may never visit the restaurant or the clinic again.
No hospital can please its customers, unless its service is pleasing and delivered by people who are caring and compassionate. In the nursing parlance, it is service with tender loving care (TLC).
What better way to build an impressive image and a brand name? Such a hospital doesn’t need a marketing department to promote or ‘sell’ its services.
Finally, high quality service in the hospital cannot be provided unless there are good facilities. This is the theme that runs through my book ‘Designing for Total Quality in Health Care and HOSPITALS: Facilities Planning and Management’.
The phenomenal advances in medicine and technology in recent years that have confounded even experts, have rendered hospitals of yesteryear obsolete. We now have the most modern, high-tech and specialty hospitals with modern equipment and specialists manning them. They have become the preferred destination - the mecca for healthcare.
Consider this. If it were offered free, would any one choose the medical care of 50 years ago? How about 10-year old treatment on a 50 per cent discount?
There would be no takers of course, which means that people want the most advanced treatment in the most modern hospital. This is a pre-requisite to build a brand name and brand image.
The writer has authored six books on hospital planning, management and designing. He currently offers his services as a consultant. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This article was first published in http://www.expresshealthcaremanagement.com
