Consumer Awareness
Rising Cost
Use of more Technology
Competition
Need of Marketing
Lack of trained manpower
High staff turnover (Attrition)
CONSUMER AWARENESS
Improved socio- economic status due to a rise in the standard of living, improvements in education , increased awareness of public and easier access to medical care has led to high expectations and demands from the consumer of hospital services.
This revolutionary change in people's mindsets has made consumers aware of their needs and demands, which have led to the evolution of a consumer-oriented market resulting in the need for evaluation of customer satisfaction.. Medical services at public and private hospitals have been under increasing strain to meet the expectations particularly because the medical care has come to the ambit of "service" under the "Consumer Protection Act." This has necessitated regular monitoring of the quality of servic
SUGGESTIONS
Develop Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM is a business strategy to select and manage customers to optimize long-term value. It requires a customer-centric business philosophy and culture to support effective marketing, sales and service processeses in the hospital by the management .
According to experts, One rupee spent on advertising yields Rs. 250 in revenues.
One rupee spent on customer services yields Rs. 2500 in revenues.
HIGH STAFF TURNOVER
Health is also very labour-intensive – the proportion of the total spent on staff is much higher in health than in most manufacturing industries and in many service industries.
There is a proven link between having talented employees and overall business performance.
Attrition levels, even in the Indian context, currently range at 18- 25 per cent per annum. This makes the situation worse as hospital normally run with 60 to 75 per cent staff keeping in mind the fluctuations in occupancy.
Hospitals with high employee turnover (21 percent or more) had a 36 percent higher cost per discharge than hospitals with turnover of 12 percent or less.
Solution:
RISING COST
The cost of medical care has risen dramatically in the last decade.
This hospital is really costly is the commonest complaint voiced by a patient when he avails the services of a hospital. The average prices being charged by tertiary hospitals grew by 15 per cent annually from 2001-02 to 2005-06. This has been taken quite seriously by payor /insurance company, it is being monitored by them.
The insurance companies will apply serious pricing pressures on the providers. Therefore, only the lowest cost provider will manage to For a hospital to increase the output, it is very important that it provides Quality healthcare at a very affordable price and that is
possible, only if the cost containment mechanism is in place and the strict compliance with the cost containment protocols is practiced.
Solution:
Implement Cost containment measures:
ØHuman resource interventions
ØEnergy saving interventions
ØMaterial management interventions
USE OF MORE TECHNOLOGY
The importance of technology in today's healthcare delivery cannot be overstated, the ancient science of diagnosing most illnesses by the pulse of the human being has been replaced by advanced radiological and pathological diagnosis. In fact, technology is going to be the key differentiator between hospitals. Medical equipments constitutes 60% of total hospital budget. But required care is not given before installation and after installation.
Solution:
A WELL-PLANNED HOSPITAL POLICY ON ACQUISITION,
UTILIZATION AND MAINTENANCE OF MEDICAL
EQUIPMENT NEEDS TO BE ESTABLISHED.
NEED OF MARKETING
Healthcare services have changed tremendously. Gone are the days when doctors were very few and patients were treating them like gods. With increase in competition, the role of healthcare marketing has increased.
It is becoming difficult for hospitals these days to depend on mere word of mouth promotion to attract patients. Hospital managements are putting extra effort in carving a brand image of the hospital and improving hospital’s visibility.
Solution:
Plan your strategy on following Basic mix of Marketing
•Product/ Service
•Price
•Place
• Person
•Promotion
•Persons delivering the services
LACK OF TRAINED MAN POWER
The hospital utilizes widely divergent groups of professionals, semi-professionals and nonprofessionals. It represents high interdependence among services.
A hospital’s success is largely dependent on the quality of work of its employees. The HR role is the most crucial in a hospital as it is more people oriented and intensive rather than equipment oriented. There is a shortage of quality and quantity of human resource in our hospitals.
There is a huge shortage of trained healthcare professionals, estimated to be a deficiency of 4,50,000 doctors and 1.2 million nurses by 2012 (Source: FICCI-Ernst & Young Report 2007).
Solution
To Deliver consistent and quality healthcare services to ensure customer satisfaction in the fast-expanding and highly- competitive healthcare industry train and update the existing
staff at various levels of patient care:
Soft Skills
Leadership
Internal Team-building
Technical training
COMPETITION
Today, the healthcare industry is moving from monopolistic position to a competitive position.
Compared to a few private institutions primarily in the form of charitable trusts and small nursing homes, recently a number of large sized Indian companies have ventured into healthcare delivery.
Solution:
Turnaround strategies are relevant, and important tool for Meeting the competition
Turnaround strategies can be categorized into three different, but inter-related approaches.
These are:
Market-based strategies
Internal strategies
Quality-centric strategies.
