How do You Change Healthcare Consumers From Ignorant/Uneducated to Informed?

The discussions on 30 plus LinkedIn groups across the wide healthcare industry spectrum has been revealing to the question "Is the Healthcare Consumer Ignorant?"

To summarize, there are many contributing factors, from healthcare diagnosis and treatment complexity, the inability of providers too communicate in an understandable way their process, to economic factors that cause the consumer to be disconnected. And some are just like arrogant parents who know all and see all.

And I thank everyone who contributed to the discussion no matter what side you are find yourself.

But it is time to move the discussion forward and start the dialogue on how to change the healthcare consumer from ignorant/uneducated to informed.

The task at hand is not insurmountable. It will require innovation, creativity, change, an attitude adjustment and perseverance.

Anything is possible.

This means a long-term commitment that most likely is generational in nature across all healthcare industry segments, to have an informed healthcare consumer. Think back to the 80s when DRGs were introduced. As an industry, healthcare went from we will do things to you, care for you and you have no real responsibility for your care and treatment, to now you have a personal responsibility to maintain good weight, stop smoking, wear a motorcycle helmet etc. We offered wellness programs, screenings, lectures and educational materials. Lots of stuff that more or less has had a positive impact on some diseases.

In spite of these efforts, we remained an industry that still does things to people and generally looked the other way when patients asked questions or wanted to be involved.

The economists, think-tanks, employers, physicians, health plans, hospitals, associations, Federal and State governments and special interest groups have spoken, created new models, programs and services in an attempt to bend the cost curve with limited success. This is not an attack, for we are better off today with these attempts at reform.

From the view in my world, one thing we have not done to a great extent is involve the end user in these discussions. How can we succeed, if the end-user is not informed and involved in all of these processes and plan creations?

The healthcare cost problem will not be solved until we have an educated, informed consumer, that is an active participant in the decision-making process regarding their care and understands the price.

Where do we go from here?

Here are some ideas, not all inclusive but just offered up for consideration.

1. Marketing needs to be far more involved than it has been so far. This isn't just about making things pretty. It's about delivering content that is informative, understandable, actionable and life-changing, delivered however the person wants it. It is multi-channel and uses all available methods like social media, web site, direct mail, webinars, apps etc. Whatever it takes. Not just the do an ad, have program. It needs to be interactive and fits into an individual's daily life seamlessly.

Senior management needs their marketing departments at the leadership table to understand the life and pulse of their communities.

HIPAA does not mean that you can't communicate and use all the tools available.

2. There needs to be price transparency. Time to move away from communicating what the charges are for healthcare to the price of the healthcare service. Consumers will understand price, they will never understand charges. Strive for clarity.

3. Increase outcome and data related transparency for the consumer. Quality awards are nice and all, but what does it really mean and how can the consumer use that type of information? Consumers can not make choices without real actionable information.

4. Stop talking at people; talk to them. Healthcare will not change and the cost curve will not be bent until we have an informed and educated consumer.

5. Create incentives for the physicians and consumers to be involved and choose lower cost options for treatment or diagnosis. For example, American Imaging Management, a WellPoint Subsidiary, has developed a creative incentive program that awards physicians and patients for choosing lower cost alternatives for some imaging. People respond to financial incentives positive and negative. Time to be creative.

6. Adjust your attitude. The healthcare consumer is not ignorant. They may be uneducated, but they are not ignorant. Given the right information, they can make reasonable decisions and be actively involved if you let them. That means changing attitude, organizational culture and approach.

7. Innovate. Healthcare lacks original innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit for the most part. Instead of saying why something won't work because it challenges established beliefs or process or ways of doing things, ask how it will work or how lessons from other industries can be adapted. Leave the comfort zone.

8. Lead the change in your organization.

These are just some ideas and opinions. I am sure that I have missed a lot, gorged some sacred cows and maybe angered a few people. We all know that this is a complicated challenge. We have tried just about everything else. And unless we begin to create an informed, involved and educated healthcare consumer, then we won't be able to bend the cost curve.

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is an entrepreneurial healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 38 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; medical device and specialty pharmacy marketing; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Is the Healthcare Consumer Ignorant?

It's the kind of question that pauses one for a minute or two. How this question came about was in response to a post of mine a few weeks ago, regarding pricing at Urgent Care Centers and the $500 Band- Aid. In comments on a couple of LinkedIn groups, a few healthcare executives called consumers ignorant.

Really.

From a marketing perspective, that is a most interesting characterization of a healthcare consumer. And a dangerous belief to hold about one segment of your audience.

Ignorant.

I don't think so. Informed. Connected. Questioning. Seeking. Paying. Shopping. These words describe the healthcare consumer of today. A consumer who is awakening and demanding a voice in diagnosis and treatment options. After all, isn't that one of the major premises for healthcare reform, and CMSs' one opening statement in the proposed ACO regulations?

In ignorance there is opportunity.

So if you really believe that the healthcare consumer is ignorant, then what are you doing to change that to create an informed consumer? How are you interacting and building you organizational brand to change the healthcare consumers from ignorant to informed? Or, are you just happy to keep them that way, so those "pesky " informed consumers don't question your pricing, decision- making and quality?

Healthcare is changing from a provider-directed and dominated model to a consumer-driven model. And that means people will be informed. They will be involved. They will make quality and pricing decisions. They will play a very strong part in utilization decisions. The healthcare consumer is far from ignorant.

With a little work, they could actually put together their own price-affordable healthcare delivery network and never set foot in a hospital, or hospital-owned setting for care. Obviously, there will be those situations requiring major surgery or trauma care, for which a hospital is the most appropriate setting. But for the rest of it, doubtful.

So, don't be surprised in the future if a healthcare consumer-driven web site shows up that points the healthcare consumers to lower-cost providers for care. Your opportunity is to become that low cost provider, taking advantage of consumer shopping behavior though innovative, cost-effective programs and services.

For health plans and insurance companies, your opportunity is to educate your plan members about providers who have lower prices for services you are paying for, and giving consumers the option to seek lower-cost providers. You could also create loyalty and incentive programs for consumers to avail themselves of lower cost setting for care.

Just because its low cost, doesn't always mean low quality.

After all, almost all diagnosis and treatment can be done in lower-cost settings than a hospital or hospital-owned facility. Get ready for a different future than what you think it will be.

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is an entrepreneurial healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 38 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; medical device and specialty pharmacy marketing; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

How Do Your Marketing Efforts Counter Negative Quality Data From 3rd Parties?

On March 31, a new data release for consumers took place with CMS posting individual hospital performance on eight Hospital Acquired Conditions (HAC). Reaction has been highly critical to say the least by physician and hospital groups. There are legitimate question as to the methodology used in some of the data and that does need to be revised. So the question came to me after reading the various groups denial of the data, pointing out its flaws and generally trying to deep six any potential informational credibility for the public-  it's out there, so what is the brand opportunity if any?

How Does Your Marketing/PR Department Counter Negative Data Releases From 3rd Parties?

Hospitals and others are quick to bend over backwards and break their arms running ads and creating press releases when the data is in their favor or an award has been bestowed. This is not a criticism it is fact. Sometimes the information presented is misleading as well. When negative quality data is published, its everyone under the table time. If we howl with indignation at the outcome or just ignore it, then maybe it will go away. Well it's not. It is out there, so how are you going to respond?

Why not take a proactive approach with the same fervor that your Marketing and PR departments do when you have an award?

There is always opportunity to be leveraged in a potentially negative situation and that takes leadership, wisdom to see the opportunity and conviction to not follow the heard.

Can you be courageous?

Have your Marketing and PR departments follow these steps and you will find that you can strengthen build your brand, counter negative effects and be a force for change in the industry.

1. Acknowledge that this is another step in the transformation of healthcare from a provider-dominated to a consumer-driven transparent healthcare market.

2. Look at the CMS data for your organization and understand what is good and what is bad.

3. Create the documents and tools for internal and external audiences to learn how to use and understand the data. Be an educator. Frame the public's discussion.

4. Indicate the challenges with the data, how it was incorrectly calculated and how it can be simply fixed. Recalculate the data based on your hospitals performance against the true number of patients that received the service.

5. If you are a poor performer, then you have the opportunity to acknowledge that you can do better and inform your audiences what you are doing to improve.

6. Use the same techniques, and resources that you would use to tell the world what a great place you are because of a quality award.

7. Be proactive in a positive manner and not reactive with negativity. Be a solution the problem, not the problem. Hit the lecture circuit in your community.

Develop good Marketing and PR habits now. As change and time accelerates and the public becomes more involved in the choice of healthcare providers and treatment options, you need to control the discussion before others.

Define the discussion before they do. If you protest too much, or dive for under the tables, then the perception is there must be some truth to what's published. Maybe, maybe not, but it's there

The consumer is the new paparazzi, social media wiz and healthcare information seeker. Frame the discussion or be framed by it.

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is an entrepreneurial healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 36 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; medical device and specialty pharmacy marketing; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Welcome to Accountable Care Organizations- Marketing Does Matter

On March 31, 2011, the healthcare system in the U.S. began to change forever with these words:

"An ACO will put the beneficiary and family at the center of all its activities. It will honor individual preferences, values, backgrounds, resources, and skills, and it will thoroughly engage people in shared decision-making about diagnostic and therapeutic options."

With these words, CMS has taken the bold step of moving the healthcare system from a provider-directed healthcare enterprise to a consumer-directed healthcare system. And the implications are enormous. It is also apparent that this will require leadership skills and abilities at the integration of culture and care. No more spin of shifting here among reimbursement options, playing docs off of one another, or avoiding difficult decisions.

Welcome to consumer-directed healthcare.

Eagerly or not so eagerly awaited, these 429 pages of proposed regulations mark the beginning of a great national discussion that will fundamentally change the healthcare delivery system in the U. S. Much as been written already by such publications as Becker's Hospital Review and more to follow.

Most of the commentary is focusing on the organizational structure and what it will require to successfully develop an ACO. My focus though is in what are the marketing implications? And there are many for what in the regulations is really a very small and insignificant portion, but can get newly developing ACOs in some serious difficulty should they fail to strategically plan and execute marketing properly. So, from the proposed regulations we find as an example:

11. ACO Marketing Guidelines:

"We believe there is a potential for beneficiaries to be misled about Medicare services available from an ACO or about the providers and suppliers from whom they can receive those services. We realize that care coordination is an important component of the Shared Savings Program; however, the potential for shared savings may be an incentive for ACOs, ACO participants, or ACO providers/suppliers to engage in behavior that may confuse or mislead beneficiaries about the Shared Savings Program or their Medicare rights.

As a result, issuing beneficiary communications or engaging in marketing activities that may be confusing or misleading would not be patient-centered because these activities restrict the ability of beneficiaries and/or their caregivers to be informed about their health care choices and thus limit the opportunity for beneficiaries to be properly involved in the management of their own care. We are proposing that all ACO marketing materials, communications, and activities related the ACO and its participation in the Shared Savings Program, such as mailings, telephone calls or community events, that are used to educate, solicit, notify, or contact Medicare beneficiaries or providers/suppliers regarding the ACO and its participation in the Shared Savings Program, be approved by us before use to protect beneficiaries and to ensure that they are not confusing or misleading. This requirement
would also apply to any materials or activities used by ACO participants or ACO providers/suppliers on behalf of the ACO to communicate about the ACO's participation in the Shared Savings Program in any manner to Medicare beneficiaries. In addition, we would want to ensure that materials distributed to beneficiaries do not misrepresent Shared Savings Program policies or suggest that we endorse the ACO, its ACO participants, or its ACO providers/suppliers.

We are further proposing that before any changes can be made to any approved materials, the revised materials must be approved by us before use. Finally, because the failure to comply with these requirements would demonstrate that the ACO does not meet the patient-centeredness criteria and therefore may no longer be eligible to participate in the program, we propose that an ACO that fails to adhere to these requirements may be placed under a corrective action plan or terminated, at our discretion.

For purposes of the Shared Savings Program, we are proposing to define ACO marketing materials, communications, and activities as including, but not limited to general audience materials such as brochures, advertisements, outreach events, letters to beneficiaries, web pages, mailings, or other activities, conducted by or on behalf of the ACO, or by ACO participants, or ACO providers/suppliers participating in the ACO, or by other individuals on behalf of the ACO or its participating providers and suppliers. If these materials or activities are used to educate, solicit, notify, or contact Medicare beneficiaries or providers and suppliers regarding the ACO and its participation in the Shared Savings Program, they must be approved by us.”

Marketing Does Matter

For those who have worked in pharmaceutical, medical device and health plans, you all know full well what happens when marketing materials are misleading and have not been approved by the responsible regulatory agencies. This just isn't throwing some brochures or flyers together, this requires high-quality, professionally-produced materials.

So as you being to assess you organizational capability, several marketing considerations become apparent:

Marketing needs to be at the table in the ACO development and decision making process as a senior management contributing member.
Marketing resources and systems need to be planned for.
Seek out an agency that has pharmaceutical, medical device and or heath plan experience. They already know what it's like to deal with and how to deal with regulatory agencies. This isn't something you do in-house.
Develop a highly integrated strategic marketing plan. Clarify brand architecture, messaging, and outcomes. Tactical execution comes last, not first.
Honestly assess the marketing organization, talent and level of expertise existing within the organization and change it if necessary. Seek out individuals with pharma, medical device or health plan expertise.
Understand this is not about making things look pretty.
It's not about you but about the consumer.

And this is important, it is not just communication strategies.

The regulations will change over the next year as comments are taken and considered. Even with change, these are marketing steps your organization needs to be taking anyway. You will be a lot better off in the long run.

By the way, did I mention the 65 quality of care indicators for ACOs that you will need to report on as well?

2012 is almost here.

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is an entrepreneurial healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 36 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at 815-293-1471 mailto:ormichael@themichaeljgroup.com . Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; medical device and specialty pharmacy marketing; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.




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So Tell Me, How Do You Market a $500 Band-Aid in a Hospital Urgent Care Center?

A story on hospital urgent care centers the other day in the Sun Sentinel, Orlando, Florida caught my eye. In a nut-shell, some hospital and system owned urgent care centers charge emergency room prices. When I started looking around the country, the same story can be repeated in community after community. This is just not an isolated one-time event.

What don't they get?

In a consumer-driven healthcare market, pricing matters. And charging $500 for a 15-minute visit that required a Band-Aid is the perfect example of why there is such an uproar by government, employers, consumers and health plans regarding healthcare cost. It also points out why Walgreens, CVS, Wal-Mart and entrepreneurs are driving the expansion of retail healthcare and outperforming the more traditional healthcare providers.

I get it. Hospitals and health systems need to expand and see the urgent care market as a means of revenue generation for combating falling volumes and declining reimbursement. Urgent care centers will be a part of any ACO strategy as well. But there are alternatives existing that makes the use of hospital-based or owned services at the prices charged, and in some cases, the quality choice of last resort.

This may indicate a lack of understanding of the basic market forces now sweeping the country as healthcare transforms from a provider-dominated " build it and they will come mentality" to a healthcare consumer-dominated market. Could it be in these cases, the age old resistance to change that hospitals and other healthcare providers exhibit from time-to-time?

Entrepreneurial individuals and Venture Capitalists are looking at this type of example nationwide and are chomping at the bit to put their own centers up and compete head-to-head against the hospitals and health systems.


The marketing keys to a successful urgent care center is location, service and price. Urgent care centers are just that urgent care, not emergency life or death care. The consumer usually walks in for minor treatment. If you want a successful urgent care center than provide the services at the price that healthcare consumers will buy. Not the ER charges that you think you can obtain by gouging consumers.

Fast, convenient, affordable. That's the marketing. That's the message. Or should be at least. Keep it simple and convenient.

I feel for that marketing department, I mean, how do you market an urgent care center that charges ER price? Besides having to handle the PR fall-out and loss of credibility to the healthcare consumer, you don't.

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich


Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 36 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Crafting a Social Media Strategy to Engage the Healthcare Consumer

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question?

Faced with a dizzying array of possibilities from twitter to facebook to YouTube, LinkedIn, flicker and others, healthcare providers are struggling with developing a comprehensive social media strategy to engage their customers.

Understandable really. Some of the concern comes from not understanding the power and uses of social media and how consumers are the new paparazzi. Some comes from trying to figure out how a social media strategy fits into the overall marketing plan. Some is purely from executive ignorance in not understanding the place and uses of social media in the life of the healthcare consumer.

In many cases its all of the above and others, including and by far the most pervasive, the never ending paralysis by analysis planning loop and engaging in that quest for the perfect best practice before proceeding.

In these situations it is about internal marketing leadership.


As the marketing expert in your organization, you need to step forward and educate what social media is, how to use it and its advantages to the organization.

It's not just a facebook page, LinkedIn, blog, web site or twitter.

This is an opportunity to experiment, to deliver new content, new key messages with non-traditional methods to reach out too and engage in a meaningful way the healthcare consumer. An opportunity to engage in dialogue, a dialogue which the healthcare consumer desires to have more than you can imagine.

Follow these steps and you're on your way to developing and implementing a strategically-focused, comprehensive and fully integrated social media strategy:

1. Strategy first, tactics second. Any old road will get you to where you want to go without a clear identifiable strategy. This is no different than a traditional marketing approach. Integrate the tools and techniques of social media into your overall marketing efforts.

2. Be clear about your messages and what value using these tools will bring to your healthcare consumers. The purpose is to engage in a dialogue not shout at them. You have to understand what type of information and content your consumers want. Without that knowledge you can say whatever you want, but chances are no one will be reading, responding or listening.

3. Take an integrated approach. What goes on your web site is also on facebook and used in twitter to drive traffic to you. Twitter is a great way to send out links for health related articles or news and information. Have a video? Post it on YouTube. Writing a healthcare blog? You should be if you're not. Make sure twitter, facebook, YouTube, flicker etc., follow you buttons are on your site. Running Back-to- School, Sports or Camp physicals? Put it on twitter, facebook and even those coupon sites like Groupon. Holding a health and wellness event, ditto.

4. Use QR codes with your web site or specific page links or phone number embedded in them to drive them to your site, call center or service line. Through the use of QR codes you can make your print and traditional activities social in nature.

5. Remember at all times your are building brand, perception and experience. This just isn't nice to have, people will remember what you say and do. Be right the first time.

6. Devote resources, budget, time and personnel for the task. This is not a part-time job. It requires a full time position to manage the channels, content and distribution. Your challenge is to keep in front of your healthcare consumers with relevant information, all the time. Attention spans are short. If someone sees no changes on a pretty regular basis in your content or information, they will fall away.

7. Measure everything. Evaluate. Adjust based on your findings.

8. Be creative, don't limit yourself to the tried and true or what a competitor is doing. Be an innovator.

9. Use social media with your physicians and employees to communicate, build organizational support and loyalty.

10. Build excitement around what you are doing, then start all over and begin again.

Jump right in the waters fine!

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 36 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni.

Creating a Sustainable Healthcare Marketing Operation in a Consumer-Driven Market

Sustainability...Presence...Perception...Experience...

These are the four constants that direct-care healthcare providers need to understand and incorporate for success in their marketing operations and campaign efforts in a consumer-driven market. No longer nice to have, these four basic concepts are now business requirements.

Sustainability- The resources to effectively and continuously communicate brand and differentiate your offering across multiple channels.

Presence - By maintaining a continuous presence across multiple channels as in so many other consumer-directed industries, you build brand preference.

Perception- With a sustainable, continuous presence in the marketplace, sooner rather than latter, your key messages become the opinion of you by consumers and they become fact in their minds.

Experience- The actual customer experience matches the brand image, perceptions and opinions of customers that you created in the marketplace that had been communicated in an integrated multi-channel sustained effort.

Change and Survive

A consumer-directed market is much different than a provider-directed market which requires skills and abilities that may or may not exist in an organization. Key success factors for creating a high performance marketing operation that delivers revenue and market share in the new healthcare environment include:

A Vice President of Marketing senior management position that reports to the CEO and is involved in all decision making.

Marketing resources human, operational and capital budgets to support a multi-channel effort externally and internally.

Comprehensive strategic and measurably focused marketing plan that is integrated with the financial and operational plan of the organization.

Tactical execution plan and timetable that integrates all the campaigning to be done over the fiscal year.

Internal communication and training to educate the organization around marketing efforts, expectations and their role in the execution of the plan.

Creation of a comprehensive marketing dashboard which communicates activities and results on a monthly basis to all levels of the organization.

The above organizational marketing success factors are at a minimum what is needed to move direct- care healthcare providers from a cottage-industry approach to marketing to a comprehensive multimillion or billion dollar corporation approach to marketing, that in realty, most of you are.

As the healthcare providers continue to consolidate across all segments, marketing will assume an increasingly important role in the survival and revenue generating activities for the organization in a consumer dominated and directed healthcare marketplace.

And that requires a far different innovative sustainable presence that changes perceptions than the old way of doing things.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471. Areas of expertise include: brand management; strategic marketing; sales and marketing integration; physician marketing; product launch; start-up launch and revenue growth; tactical market planning; customer experience management; rebuilding and revitalizing marketing operations; media relations; and service line revitalizations. Mike is Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni. healthcare marketing, brnd, hospitals, health systems