Recommendations for improving the hospital’s marketing policy

Abstract

This article summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on improving the marketing policy of the clinic. The purpose of the study is to improve the marketing policy of the clinic. The urgency of solving the scientific problem lies in need to promote medical services, where marketing activities contribute to establishing relations between providers and consumers of medical services. The authors noted that patients have a low level of awareness in medical services, making it difficult to understand the market of medical services. In turn, public and municipal health care facilities have a passive marketing policy that is not competitive enough with private health care facilities. In most cases, state and municipal medical institutions do not use marketing tools to acquaint consumers with the list of available services, do not inform consumers about the expansion of medical services and the benefits of their medical institution. The object of the study was selected health care management. According to the results of empirical analysis of ways to improve the marketing policy of the clinic, it is established that the reform of the medical sector of Ukraine intensifies the processes of competition in the market. The marketing system of Ukrainian health care has no concept of medical care. Instead of that, there is a market element as medical service or health care service provided to the patient by a health care institution or an individual registered according to the law and possessing the medical business license. Besides, the medical services are paid for by the customer, such as patients, various organizations, local authorities, and the government. Thus, public medical institutions faced the need to fight (particularly with private medical institutions) for the consumer and state funding for the package of primary medical services. The study empirically confirms and theoretically proves the existence of competition between private and public medical institutions in the market of medical services. The results of this study can help improve the marketing policy of public and municipal clinics.