Pick up a patient feedback form of any hospital and you would almost invariably find a question towards the end that reads ‘Would you recommend this hospital to your friend/relatives?’. Most hospital take pleasure if high percentage of patient respond to this question by saying ‘yes’. But do hospitals know, if the patients actually do what they write? The question can be expanded as, do hospitals actually know why patients selected their hospital for treatment? Below, I have discussed, how knowing this could be central to the success of your hospital business. (You may also like to read a related post on 'Risks in hospital business' and Performance measures for hospital business).
Classifying patients for business monitoring
Business managers in hospital generally classify their patient’s footfall into walk-in-patients and referral patients, for monitoring their business performance and developing further plan for marketing. Whether walk-in or referral, there are few reasons which plays a dominant role in patient’s decision to select a hospital. While patient coming due to any reason doesn’t matter as far as hospital’s sales figure is concerned, it may be of a concern for a sustainability and long-term business. For a hospital business manager with long term focus, understanding these reasons is crucial to appropriately position and promote their hospitals.
Reasons for selection of hospital by a patient
Let’s think as a patient for a while and identify reasons that could matter while selecting a hospital. The reasons could be brand image of the hospital, a well-known doctor in the hospital, only hospital having required clinical service in the vicinity, recommendation from friends/relatives, good online reviews, hospital empanelled with patient’s employer/insurance provider, a known staff member in the hospital, etc. The list can go on for long. For most patients it would be a combination of reasons that will influence his/her decision making. Like, the primary doctor referred the patient to that hospital and also the hospital had positive reviews by its patients. Some time the reasons could be contradictory. For example hospital does not have good brand image, but is the only hospital approachable by the patient which is empanelled by his/her insurance service provider. In such contradiction, the decision is determined by the importance that individual patient gives to the contradicting reasons.
Assessing and classifying reasons
Now, if you look at the list of reasons from an eye of a hospital business manager, some reasons may appeal to you as favourable to your business than others. For example, reasons such as brand image or good online reviews are better assurance of business than reasons such as a known staff member in the hospital or only hospital in the vicinity. Because a staff member may leave or another hospital may open up in future, these reasons cannot be considered dependable in long run. On the other hand, brand image or positive word of mouth are things that can be maintained and will last long. Word of mouth publicity is highly relevant for hospital business and the post on 'Avoiding poor online rating of your hospital', describe it in more detail.
Reasons why patient select your hospital can be classified as intrinsic or extrinsic to hospitals. Intrinsic (like brand image, positive reviews) are those, which are based on strength and reputation of hospital while extrinsic (like having a well-known doctor) are reasons that are related to market condition and patient situations, and have nothing to do with hospital’s capabilities. A hospital will have limited control on extrinsic reasons but strong control on intrinsic. So for hospital’s business, it is important that intrinsic reasons dominate the extrinsic when patient decides to choose your hospital. Thus, if you have a clear understanding of why patients come to your hospital you can have an idea about how well or worse are you positioned in your business.
So, if reasons why patients select your hospital is important, it brings us back to the original question from first paragraph, how do hospitals know why patients choose their hospital. Well, hospitals need to have ways to get an answer to this. Adding a question in feedback form asking ‘why did they selected this hospital’, or by just asking this question at the time of admission can provide necessary information regarding this.
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