mommyjenlin

The Crisis Faced with a well documented financial meltdown , the global consequences and a deep national recession , how can a hospital or system CEO keep the doors open and the lights on? The answer is simple, yet complex and difficult to carry out. Few try and most of those that do fail. Think about this for a moment, there is little if any differentiation in the healthcare marketplace . Hospitals on average look the same . They provide the same services, have the same managed contracts contract and even have similar medical staffs. Patient satisfaction runs in the 80th – 90th percentile satisfied. Looks like an industry that is very close to becoming a commodity which will eventually compete on price alone. The hospital CEO, medical business leader, managing partner, vice president, director or manger needs to be creating customer evangelists to not just survive, but grow and thrive in this and any future environment. The answer: Customer Evangelists! A customer evangelist i

With the financial market meltdown, worldwide recession I say look for new mergers and closings in the hospital industry. Even though many are profitable, well at least slightly, that will go by the way side with investment income losses, higher numbers of uninsured, rising bad debt and lengthening delays in Medicaid payments from the states, the picture is bleak. Declining utilization and tighter reimbursement from managed care doesn’t help either. Oh yea, those pesky retail clinics won’t help either. I am surprised more hospitals don’t go that route, partner with their doctors and drive those babies out of their markets. Insuring the 45 million and growing uninsured is not in the cards fore the foreseeable future, not till 2010 at the earliest . President-elect Obama has his hands full. First priority is fixing the financial system, second is the economy, and third is healthcare. Without the first two, the third never happens. Hospitals are cutting back, but it is in marketing as a

As your marketing organization approaches the end of its annual planning cycle, remember that it shouldn't end on January 1, 2009. As marketers we must get better at managing our annual and intra-year process as a part of our regular business processes vs. a once per year disruptive event. Doing so could be a helpful step forward in improving our ability to manage investment, shift resources in response to market conditions, and improve alignment within marketing and with the rest of the organization. Based upon interviews with marketing leaders in the technology industry and findings from IDC's recent Marketing Operations Board meeting, I'd like to offer the following "food for thought": 1. Staffing : Do you have an individual or team who's accountable for developing, executing and governing your planning process? The marketing operations function can provide the foundation and discipline for a well-orchestrated and managed planning process. Although this