With todays budget cuts and declining reimbursements, can a hospital afford to “niche” market its specialty services? Can a hospital or health system afford not to? A large number of institutions, mainly community based, do not ear mark resources for program-specific marketing activity. The changes in clinical practice, payor requirements and market demands that have occurred over the past five years are causing many health care providers to “re-think” their approach to marketing in high volume clinical areas such as cardiovascular services.
According to the 2001 National Hospital Discharge Survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of listed diagnosis for hospital discharges is reported:
- Heart Disease (4.3 million)
- Delivery (3.8 million)
- Psychoses (1.6 million)
- Pneumonia (1.3 million)
- Malignant neoplasm (1.2 million)
Of significance, Heart Disease leads the numbers. Of greater importance, cardiovascular admissions can account for 20% to 40% of total hospital revenue.
Offering new services and programs such as coronary interventions and open heart surgery provide an ideal venue to attract new potential patients. These services can be life saving and demand is expected to grow.
One of the first questions to be answered when a decision is made to expand cardiovascular services: Can the traditional method for identifying the general hospital market be applied to determining the cardiovascular patient market? Hospitals traditionally have looked at service areas and differentiated them into primary, secondary and tertiary based on geography and known referral patterns. Determining demand for cardiovascular services requires a different approach.
Identifying a service specific market can be best accomplished using a “market-responsive” methodology. Starting with a map of the region, an area should be outlined based on the knowledge available on the community, referral patterns and current general services data. Following this exercise, survey cardiologists, key medical staff and the Emergency Department to determine where or will patients originate to access cardiac care. Once the boundary has been defined with a cardiac perspective, detailed information on hospital discharges in the cardiovascular Major Diagnostic Codes (MDC-5) can be retrieved and analyzed to identify the Total Cardiac Target Market (TCTM).
The TCTM is the population from which a cardiovascular program could reasonably expect to draw patient referrals. The TCTM geographic area usually reflects the distance that individuals will travel for sophisticated heart care. The TCTM methodology is supported with a consideration for geographic and social barriers, physician referral patterns, outreach efforts, and planned growth and practice expansion opportunities.
The best way to master the changing market forces that healthcare providers are experiencing is to focus on core competencies and strive to be the “best” both clinically and financially. The key to success is identifying exactly what clinical services will be provided and benchmarking to measure results. This encompasses integrating marketing and many facets of hospital operations. Once accomplished, communicating (marketing) to your community (TCTM) through a service-specific marketing effort can reap new patient volume and achieve financial goals in cardiovascular services.
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