Repositioning a 100 bed secondary care hospital into a 300 bed Tertiary care Hosptial
Repositioning a 100 bed secondary care hospital into a 300 bed Tertiary care Hosptial
This hospital used to be a 100 bed Secondary care unit. Main specialties were Medicine, Surgery, OBG, Orthopedics, Pulmunology etc. Infrastructure consisted of 100 beds, 3 OTs, 15 ICU beds, Cabins and General Wards, 3 bed Emergency, 4 Dialysis machines and OPD. Consultant model was Fee For Service. It was running pretty well for 10 years and was recognised as such by the patient base.
Due to increasing competition in secondary care space and more importantly – fueled by a huge demand, the management decided to elevate this hospital into a 300 bed Tertiary Care Hospital with all super-specialities. 3 years, a lot of money and some brilliant designing went into adding 3 more buildings. Now the new infrastructure consisted of 300 beds, 80 ICUs, 7 OTs, a good ER, 50 Dialysis, OPD, etc. Super-specialties added were Cardiac Sciences, Neuro Sciences, GI, Renal, including Kidney Transplant etc. Consultant model was changed to salaried doctors and some visiting as well.
The Challenge – though the product completely changed (both in infrastructure and aesthetics), the public Perception was not changed. People still thought of this hospital to be a small secondary care hospital. A lot of money was spent on advertisements and branding exercises, but only some pockets were impacted. By and large, the perception of the hospital remained that of a small secondary hospital in people’s eyes.
Now, the management is struggling to convince people that “Hey, we are a super-specialty hospital with great infrastructure and very nice clinical services ” but people still chose to go to other hospitals. Whereas the typical answer could be that – ‘these things take time’. But looking for a solution better than that ! Any ideas ?
I was going to start with “these things take time” but defaulted!
A lot of people tend to spend a lot of the hospital’s Marketing budget on large scale generalized Advertising and Media campaigns etc. but it could be a total waste of an investment if you are reaching out to the wrong people. Know your audience and then target your marketing and branding strategies to suit these communities. We are a relatively new 300 bed tertiary hospital and after a market survey conducted recently, we realized that based on our location, there are certain demographics that frequent our centre and we should be focusing our marketing and branding strategies on platforms that reach out to these communities specifically. It definitely resulted in a positive influx in our numbers and revenue quite quickly.
I agree mostly. Tripling your capacity is a tall order and if you have existing competition you must identify and emphasize what distinguishes you from the other health systems enough to attract people away from a system they already know and trust. Curious about the market research results and how they were compelling enough to suggest this expansion was a great opportunity.
If you know the market needs your services, I’d suggest getting out into the community A LOT, consistently and offering services, building relationships so people see you live and not just through marketing. Otherwise, even time may not help unless you get help from your competitors, I.e a PR disaster.