Examine The Strategic Planning Process And Develop A Healthcare Marketing Plan
Creating a Social Media Marketing Campaign
Abstract
Marketing healthcare services is central to achieving the strategic goals of the hospital. The marketing activity that the hospital undertakes must be targeted at creating value for the customer and recruiting more clients for the institution. They should also be responsive to the changing social dynamics and focus on reaching out to the highest number of people. Social media marketing achieves both ends. It uses technology that people from all population segments relate with, meaning that its scope of coverage is wide. A healthcare institution that is traditionally used to print, web, and electronic advertisement should complement its marketing mix with this technology. However, it must ensure that patient privacy and confidentiality are maintained in line with HIPAA regulations and other applicable statutes.
Marketing Strategy
The information required to create a marketing strategy includes what patient conditions require more emphasis as well as the clients’ preferred medical services providers (Buchbinder, Shanks, & Kite, 2019). A marketing strategy should also take into consideration, the social, political, and economic factors applicable to the healthcare sector (Buchbinder, Shanks, & Kite, 2019). For a larger hospital that has acquired two smaller facilities in the recent past, communicating this merger is essential in ensuring the continuation of care. A unified message for clients will indicate how the combined systems will provide holistic services to patients who require general and specialized medical care. The promotional messages designed for this purpose will depend on the services provided and any changes in service delivery occasioned by this merger. For example, it is important to inform the community that the hospital now offers hospice care.
Hospital websites and social media are crucial in creating a sense of community. Garret, Spreitzer, and Bacevice (2017) define a community in terms of relatedness, especially in the wake of virtual connectedness. Opening a social media account for the new conglomerate will connect patients and their families to their healthcare provider, thus fostering a feeling of togetherness in an online community. Social media marketing will only augment the marketing activities of the hospital, meaning that the older methods will be retained.
Social Media Marketing
The process of adding social media marketing into the mix will begin by opening Facebook and Twitter accounts. Once the social media accounts have been set, the hospital will delegate a team of IT staff that will take online customer requests and respond in the shortest time possible. The team will have access to all clinical departments where they can retrieve information about the various questions asked by the clients.
Monitoring and Evaluation
After the implementation of the social media marketing plans, the IT specialist will analyze the impact on the number of clients served in this facility since the inception of this initiative. The IT team will trace the patient from their social media queries to the actual visit to the hospital to get a clear picture of the impact that this marketing has on the number of clients. Any volume change will be displayed through bar charts and line graphs for record-keeping.
HIPAA Compliance
Since the interaction of the clients on the online platform introduces the risk of compromising patients’ privacy, the institution will establish administrative and technical safeguards to prevent this misconduct in line with HIPAA Security Rule (Koch, 2017). These rules will ensure that only the members of the team have passwords that allow them to access patient details shared through social media.
