Market For Health Care Services Research Articles

Analyzing the 20-year declining trend of hospital length-of-stay in European countries with different healthcare systems and reimbursement models.

The study aims to investigate the last 20-year (2000-2019) of hospital length of stay (LOS) trends and their association with different healthcare systems (HS) among 25 European countries. A panel dataset was created using secondary data from Eurostat and Global Burden of Disease study databases, with dependent and control variables aggregated at the national level over a period of 20years. A time trend analysis was conducted using a weighted least squares model for panel data to investigate the association between LOS, HS models [National Health Service (NHS), National Health Insurance, Social Health Insurance (SHI), and Etatist Social Health Insurance], healthcare reimbursement schemes [Prospective Global Budget (PGB), Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG), and Procedure Service Payment (PSP)], and control variables. The study showed a reduction of average LOS from 9.20days in 2000 to 7.24 in 2019. SHI was associated with a lower LOS compared to NHS (b = - 0.6327, p < 0.05). Both DRG (b = 1.2399, p < 0.05) and PSP (b = 1.1677, p < 0.05) reimbursement models were positively associated with LOS compared to PGB. Our results confirmed the downward trend of LOS in the last 20years, its multifactorial nature, and the influence of the SHI model of HS. This could be due to the financial incentives present in fee-for-service payment models and the role of competition in creating a market for healthcare services. These results offer insight into the factors influencing healthcare utilization and can inform the design of more effective, efficient, and sustainable HS.

Marketing strategy analysis based on segmenting and targeting in hospital: A literature review

Background: Healthcare services have undergone changes in several strategic business units that require proper management handling. The evolution of hospitals, accompanied by the high demands of the community for services, has led hospitals to compete in seeking new opportunities and strategies to meet consumer (patient) needs. In an effort to meet consumer expectations and desires, hospitals need to design a marketing mix that provides value to the target consumers. Management planning serves the target market based on hospital market segmentation.Purpose: To define the analysis of healthcare service market segments in a manner that supports the marketing process in hospitalsMethod: This study is a literature review. The research data sources were derived from literature obtained via the internet, including scientific research findings from various sources. The population in this study consisted of research focusing on the assessment of hospital market segmentation from 2015 to 2022. A total of 12 research articles were obtained from scholarly publications such as Science Direct, Scopus, ProQuest, Springer Link, Google Scholar, PubMed, JSTOR, and Emerald Insight. The collected data were then systematically analyzed.Results: This result revealed that a marketing strategy employing segmentation concepts, supported by an appropriate marketing mix, was an effective means to enhance healthcare services according to customer needsConclusion: This study concluded that hospital market segmentation analysis, based on geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral factors and supported by an appropriate marketing mix, was an effective means to improve healthcare services according to customer needs.

Constructing healthcare services markets: networks, brokers and the China-England engagement

Healthcare services is an expanding international market with which national healthcare systems engage, and from which they benefit, to greater and lesser degrees. This study examines the case of the China-England engagement in healthcare services as a vehicle for illuminating the way in which such market relationships are constructed. China and England have different approaches to the international healthcare services market. Aware of the knowledge and technology gaps between itself and the leading capitalist nations of the West in healthcare, as in other sectors, the Chinese leadership has encouraged a variety of international engagements to facilitate the bridging of these gaps including accessing new supply and demand relationships in international markets. These engagements are situated within an approach to health system development based on establishing broad policy directions, allowing a degree of local innovation, initiating and evaluating pilot studies, and promulgating new programmatic frameworks at central and local levels. The assumption is that the new knowledge and technologies are integrated into this approach and implemented under the guidance of Chinese experts and leaders. England's healthcare system has the knowledge resources to provide the supply to meet at least some of the China demand but has yet to develop fully the means to enable an efficient market response, though such economic engagement is supported by the UK's trade related departments of state. As a result, the development of China-England commercial relationships in patient care, professional education and hospital and healthcare service development has been led largely by high status NHS Trusts and private sector organisations with the entrepreneurial capacity to exploit their market position. Drawing on their established international clinicians and commercial teams with experience of domestic private sector provision, these institutions have built trust-based collaborations sufficiently robust to facilitate demand-supply relationships in the international healthcare services market. Often key to the development of relations required to make commercial exchange feasible and practicable are a range of international brokers with the skills and capacity to provide the necessary linkage with individual healthcare consumers and institutional clients in China. Integral to the broker role, and often supplied by the broker itself, are the communication technologies of telemedicine to enable the interaction between consumer and healthcare provider, be this in patient care, professional education or healthcare service development. Although England's healthcare system has the knowledge required to respond to China's market demand and such economic engagement is supported and actively encouraged by the UK's trade related departments of state, the response is constrained by multiple domestic demands on its resources and by the limits of the NHS approach to marketisation in healthcare.

Optimal information disclosure strategy in the primary healthcare service market: From the perspective of signaling theory.

The promotion of general practitioner (GP) contract service is one of the key components of China's healthcare reform. We consider GPs providing primary health services with private competency information over two periods, where patients decide when to sign. Two types of GPs are considered: those with higher and lower competency. Under asymmetric information, to spur the patients' incentive to sign, the GPs can move to offer competency disclosure schemes to patients, for example, separating or pooling, through which true competency information is revealed, respectively. We investigate three scenarios, which are referred to as "separating-separating," "pooling-separating," and "pooling-pooling." The results of the three scenarios yield intriguing insights into the impact of the GP's competency disclosure decisions. Findings include that GPs prefer the "pooling-separating" strategy, but patients prefer "separating-separating." Besides, an extremely low cure rate may enable GPs to conceal some competency information. Furthermore, low-competency GPs may exaggerate their competency level for profit, but greater efforts in disclosing competency information may result in diminished benefits. Therefore, to promote the services of GPs, the core is always to improve GPs' competency.

Development of the national market for healthcare services in the Republic of Kazakhstan in the context of the digitalization of the economy

Object: The aim of the study is to identify the effects of the influence of the processes of digitalization of society on the development of the healthcare services market. The object of the research is the healthcare services market in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The subject of the research is managerial and economic relations that mediate the processes of development and functioning of the health services market in the context of digitalization of society.Methods: Statistical and comparative analysis.Findings: The article examines the economic effects of the introduction of digital technologies in the healthcare sector, both from the point of view of medical organizations and from the point of view of patients. These effects are expressed in monetary and non-monetary terms (e.g. reduced waiting times). The scale and rate of introduction of digital technologies, qualitative characteristics are shown. The rates of computerization of the work of medical institutions, equipping with the Internet, the transition from paper information carriers to electronic ones, an increase in the number of users with special mobile applications from medical institutions, SMS notifications are traced. The problems of introducing digital technologies into the healthcare sector of Kazakhstan are identified.Conclusions: During the period under review, the provision of medical organizations with computers and access to the Internet increased significantly. In Kazakhstan, medical information systems have been introduced. They have created electronic health passports for each patient, in which employees of medical institutions have entered data about patients. Likewise, other objects of primary medical documentation were transferred to an electronic format, which led to savings in paper and other carriers of medical information, increased the speed of document circulation, and reduced the waiting time for receiving a service. The creation of the National Telemedicine Network made it possible to solve the problems with the shortage of doctors in remote regions and with the speed of providing medical consultations. Introducing special mobile applications to use also creates convenience for recipients of medical services. Thus, the digitalization of healthcare services has improved the quality of life of the population of Kazakhstan. At the same time, there are certain institutional problems that need to be addressed.

Challenges, Opportunities and Strategies in Marketing of Healthcare Services in India

Healthcare trade has become one among the foremost competitive industries in Asian nation. The attention trade is growing at Associate in Nursing accelerated pace because the variety of personal hospitals within the country will increase. The e-Health market is calculable to be price US$10.6 billion by 2025. However, one among the largest challenges facing each new and ancient hospital sectors is attention promoting. This paper seeks to look at the challenges moon-faced by Indian hospitals from an attention promoting perspective. The study is predicated on offered secondary information and literature and additionally aims to spot opportunities associated with attention promoting in Asian nation.

СТРАТЕГИЧЕСКИЕ ПРИОРИТЕТЫ РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ ПРОГРАММЫ МОДЕРНИЗАЦИИ ПЕРВИЧНОГО ЗВЕНА ЗДРАВООХРАНЕНИЯ НА РЕГИОНАЛЬНОМ УРОВНЕ

The market for healthcare services provided with the widespread use of digital technologies, according to Kvint, is a global emerging market. In order to account for the development trends of this market, strategizing technologies are needed. In this work we base on foreign experience to reveal the main trends in the process of strategic management of the modernization of primary health care at the global level and in a number of countries of the world. An attempt is made to apply these approaches to Russian practice, taking into account the existing strategic documents. Based on the study of world experience, it is shown that the process of research-based strategizing, using a comprehensive set of strategic tools based on digital technologies of knowledge-intensive management, is a key strategic priority for the development of the primary healthcare at the regional level. It is assumed that the best option would be to return, at least in part, to the well-thought-out Digital Health sub-programme, which was not included in the 2017 Digital Economy program. To get an overall picture of the use of digital technologies in healthcare, it is necessary to monitor the scientific, technological, human resource, organizational and logistical (equipment) components of this picture. In recent years, numerous regulations have been adopted that are directly or indirectly related to the digitalization of healthcare and medical activities. At the same time, their key provisions are related to the lack a systemic integration of digitalization into the healthcare development process as a whole. Similar processes should be carried out as part of the creation and development of regional segments of the digital platform.

The Relation between Electronic Marketing of Health Care Services and Hospital Image as Perceived by Staff Nurses

The Relation between Electronic Marketing of Health Care Services and Hospital Image as Perceived by Staff Nurses

EDITORIAL COMMENT

Digital direct-to-consumer marketing of healthcare services and products has exploded in recent years, adapting to a highly digital society. At-home semen testing has become available to men who wish to pursue a basic fertility evaluation without interfacing with a healthcare professional. The authors sought to determine whether a population of ‘health-conscious’ men without children have interest in pursuing a fertility assessment.

Examining the prominence and congruence of organizational corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication in medical tourism provider websites

PurposeThis study examines the prominence and congruence or “fit” between corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and medical tourism providers (MTPs). In doing so, this study seeks to understand the forms of CSR commonly used in the marketing of health-care services by international MTPs.Design/methodology/approachExploratory quantitative content analysis methods are used to examine CSR communication provided by MTPs. Descriptive statistics and analyses of variance are used to analyze the data.FindingsResults show that 22% of MTP websites provided CSR information. There was a high degree of congruence or “fit” between the MTPs and the CSR. Furthermore, each MTP averaged between three and six CSR engagements demonstrating a commitment to not only the practice of CSR but also the stakeholders and communities who benefit.Research limitations/implicationsThis analysis focused on organizational websites and did not examine CSR communications delivered through alternative media channels (e.g. digital platforms, promotional brochures, print advertising, etc.).Practical implicationsThis study adds to the CSR framework in the medical tourism context by discovering what forms of CSR are commonly used in the marketing and promotion of international health services and further analyzes the strategic communication techniques used to deliver these messages.Social implicationsCSR is argued to have direct impacts on employee satisfaction, investor relations and consumer behavior; therefore, current findings may contribute to the development of measurement tools for empirical studies that test relationships between the persuasiveness of CSR messages on the attitudes of medical tourists.Originality/valueResearch inquiries into the CSR strategic communication practices help to identify strengths and opportunities, while informing reputation management and relationship-building practices.

Multilevel trust in international marketing of healthcare services: A five-country comparative study

PurposeThis research aims to increase understanding on how multilevel trust is developed as well as how trust levels are interconnected and influence international marketing strategy for healthcare services. Design/Methodology/ApproachA comparative case study approach was applied with Elekta, a Swedish firm, operating in Brazil, the Philippines, China, Russia, and Hong Kong. FindingsThe research culminated in a multilevel trust (MLT) model comprised of three levels relating to individuals, company performance, and context. Research implications/limitationsThis study offers a context-based multilevel trust model from a process perspective focusing on healthcare. This model can be tested in other service sectors. Practical implicationsManagers should consider multilevel trust to boost relationships and achieve local acceptance. Originality/ValueThis research contributes to trust theory by constructing a context-based multilevel trust model for international healthcare marketing.

Determinants of the Relationship of Medical Service Entities in the Virtual Environment

Introducing new technologies to the healthcare market provides unique opportunities for implementing a powerful framework of resources, tools, and applications that can revolutionize the ways in which medical units interact with their patients, as well as help deliver and manage medical services. The Internet of Services, as a new concept of Internet evaluation, depends not only on technological solutions but also on service innovations in the field of new value propositions where a patient-centered model is needed. Such a model would consider patient preferences, values, and the need for information as the leading characteristics of care. Patient and medical unit engagement is an essential prerequisite for the new value proposition development process. In this paper, we focus on the identification and analysis of the determinants responsible for the mutual engagement of patients and medical units. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe a relational model for the virtual healthcare service market. This study adopted a quantitative survey approach. The questionnaire was based on a three-factor model of consumer behavior, considering motivation, capacity, and opportunities. The relationships between patients and healthcare organizations will develop on the condition that the patients are properly motivated and have adequate abilities to become engaged in the relationships with health care providers.

Marketing of healthcare services in Denmark: the concept of misleading advertising.

As severe ill and incurable patients can be easy victims of misleading advertising activities for dangerous and non-effective healthcare treatments, the marketing of healthcare services are in many jurisdictions legislations tightly regulated. This article reviews the Danish regulation on marketing of healthcare services to identify which types of advertising activities that are legal. As the legislation only allows healthcare authorities to control the marketing and not the content and quality of the marketed healthcare services, their ability to intervene in serious cases of misleading advertising is limited. Misleading advertising are statements with the purpose to exaggerate or underestimate the effects and risks of healthcare services or to prevent patients from seeking conventional medical treatments. From a public health perspective, there is a need for a common EU legislation for regulation of the marketing of healthcare services as the increasing use of information technologies makes it possible for the providers to access consumers and patients directly across countries and legal systems.

Medical Tourism Association as an Instrument of Managing Health Industry Competitivity

The article presents the classification of medical tourism services based on functional limitations. The distinction between the concepts of health and medical tourism has been made. The objective of medical clinical tourism is to obtain diagnosis, treatment and prophylactic measures, surgical treatment measures. Health tourism includes rehabilitation and sanatorium-resort treatment, balneological, physiotherapeutic and resort tourism. The analysis of healthcare services market has been performed from the perspectives of supply and demand. The foreign practice of medical tourism management by professional associations in the USA and Ukraine has been reviewed. The article analyzes Russian medical tourism associations’ activities and structure. These organizations are still taking their first steps and do not significantly contribute to the management of public health sector. A proper management of medical tourism in Russia is impossible without taking into account its regional specifics. Since Russian associations do not have an extensive regional network, it isadvisable to create an organization promoing the development of medical tourism especially in the Southern and North Caucasian Federal Districts. The goals, functions, and members of such organization have been identified, as well as its main advantages, the range of services provided, objects of specialized infrastructure that Russian medical tourism association should run. The article presents the results of the research supported by grant № 19-410-230059r_a from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.

Formation of a human resources management strategy based on personnel motivation

This article provides a detailed analysis of the formation of a HR strategy based on staff motivation. The study was conducted on the example of the organization of the healthcare sector of Optik-Vision LLC. The relevance of the article is due to the ever-growing dynamics of the healthcare services market, constantly increasing demands on the conditions of work, as well as on the level of professional competence of employees. The study examined in detail the main problems of the lack of effectiveness of the development strategy of personnel management of healthcare organizations based on staff motivation.Based on the results of a survey conducted in the organization of the healthcare sector of LLC Optik-Vision, a number of tools to increase staff motivation, namely a course to increase professional competence in the field of information technology, were formed and implemented; updated premium pay system; business games for teaching staff the principles of managing their time; training, providing the opportunity to most effectively shape and maintain control of motivation for their work; corporate events. As a result, an increase in the motivation of the staff of Optic-Vision LLC was determined in the field of more efficient use of their time on issues of labor activity.

Focus, Uncertain Needs, and Consumer Choice in the Hospital Industry

Problem definition: This study examines the relationship between organizational focus, diversification of services, and consumer choice in the market for healthcare services. Academic/practical relevance: While previous studies have examined the roles of focus and diversification in efficiency and quality of care, their role in patient choice has received less attention. Methods: We use hospital inpatient data from the state of Florida for the years 2006–2010 to examine this problem in the context of obstetrics services. Results: Patients are more likely to choose hospitals that specialize in obstetrics services. They also show preferences for diversification across hospital units but not diversification within the focal unit. Specifically, they prefer hospitals offering wider ranges of services for newborns, which often involve different departments in the hospital but do not prefer hospitals offering wider ranges of obstetrics services. Managerial implications: Hospitals can gain an advantage by focusing on a small set of services. However, focus has important limits, as patients may have needs that cut across medical specialties and prefer facilities that can serve these sometimes complex needs. We discuss potential implications for hospital performance.

The perceived role of Islamic medical care practice in hospital: the medical doctor’s perspective

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the perceived role of the Islamic medical care practice of Muslim doctors in Malaysian Muslim-friendly private hospitals.Design/methodology/approachData were collection through self-administered questionnaires voluntarily submitted by the respondents. The survey covered selected major Muslim-friendly private hospitals in the country in the states of Kedah, Johor, Penang, Selangor, Kelantan and Kuala Lumpur. The non-probability purposive sampling was used, as the respondents and locations of the survey areas were predetermined.FindingsFive dimensions of the Muslim-friendly medical care practice were identified, namely, medical etiquettes, physical examination, proper cleansing process of blood and body fluids, proper handling and treatment of infectious diseases and doctors’ advice to Muslim patients. The findings also indicate that the scale development analysis produced excellent results which can be used for reproducible or repetitive medical care purposes and for integration facts and figures for inclusion into wider medical care policy and practices.Practical implicationsThe results from the study can further develop Islamic medical care practices and enable medical service providers to upgrade their performances to an enviable strategic status.Originality/valueIslamic medical care is a new mode of healthcare service market, as there are very few studies on this topic from the perspective of Muslim patients or no obvious facts are known. This study has first explored Muslim doctors’ perceived role in Islamic medical care practice in Malaysian Muslim-friendly private hospitals. This empirical study can immensely contribute to the further development of Islamic medical care practice for Muslim doctors in particular and for the Muslim-friendly hospital service marketing strategy in general.

Comparison of Horizontally Integrated Hospitals in Private and Public sectors of Czech Republic

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionHealthcare economy in general and in particular increasing the efficiency in healthcare are currently largely discussed topics. Amongst the most frequently used terms in this context are effectiveness, economy, efficiency, profitability, expediency and prosperity. The efficiency of healthcare is in the interests of not only individual state governments and specific healthcare organisations but it is also widely discussed at the international level as well. One of the strategic goals set by the World Health Organisation is the development of fairer and more efficient health systems, which will be affordable for all people and will respond to their actual needs. This goal was also set by the Ministry of Health of Czech Republic which included it into the National Strategy - Health 2020 (Ministry of Health of Czech Republic, 2014).Integrating hospitals and other healthcare organisations appears to be a perspective trend from the viewpoint of efficiency. Integration can be characterised as the interlinking of individual organisations with the aim of mutual partnerships that will bring advantages to all parties.According to Matysiewicz (2011), healthcare services market is predisposed to integrate itself. This flows from the following reasons:* the structure of the healthcare sector is rather dispersed,* for a long time centres within the public sector were not independent and were not in competition with one another,* the structure of patients' needs and the restrictions in centres' resources are essential factors forcing them for mutual partnership,* system solutions in health protection take into consideration the possibilities of integrating small medical centres as well as private doctors' practices.Same as in other economy's spheres, two basic types of integration can be identified in the healthcare system:a) Horizontal integration - coordination of activities across operating units that are at the same stage of patient services delivering (Pan American Health Organization, 2008). These tendencies are described in many scientific articles, e.g., by Hernandez (2000); Ocampo-Rodriguez et al. (2013),b) Vertical integration - coordination of services among operating units that are at different stages in the process of delivering patient services (Pan American Health Organization, 2008). Vertical integration in healthcare is debated, for example, by Hernandez (2000); de Albuquerque et al. (2011); Byrne & Ashton (1999).The aim of the research conducted by the Faculty of Management and Economics at Tomas Bata University in Zlin was to compare the efficiency of private horizontally integrated hospitals and horizontally integrated hospitals owned by the county, town or municipality.The contribution consists of 5 basic parts. In the first part, the role of hospitals in the healthcare system and the basic typology of hospitals are presented. Statistical data were sourced mainly from the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of Czech Republic. The theoretical framework, mainly focused on healthcare efficiency and its measuring are presented in the second part. In this part, the findings published in prestigious international healthcare and economy journals are analyzed. Next follows the problem statement and then the research objective is defined. The research outcomes are presented in the Key Results chapter. At the end of this contribution, the research outcomes are subjected to discussion in which the emphasis is put on practical application of the findings and the research limitations.1.Hospitals and Their role in the Health Care SystemGladkij et al. (2003) define a hospital as inpatient medical facility which is licenced to provide health care with a certain amount of beds, an organised medical team with appropriate qualifications and is able to provide continuous medical and health care services. …

The Marketing of Healthcare Services in ENT-Clinics

The provision of healthcare services in Germany is based on fundamental principles of solidarity and is highly regulated. The question arises which conditions exist for marketing for healthcare services in ENT-clinics in Germany. The marketing options will be elicited using environmentally analytical considerations. The objectives can be achieved using measures derived from external instruments (service policy, pricing policy, distribution policy or communications policy) or from an internal instrument (human resources policy). The policy environment is particularly influenced by the regulatory framework, which particularly restricts the scope for both the pricing and communications policies. All measures must, however, reflect ethical frameworks, which are regarded as the fundamental premise underlying healthcare services and may be at odds with economic factors. Scope for flexibility in pricing exists only within the secondary healthcare market, and even there only to a limited extent. The significance of price in the marketing of healthcare services is thus very low. If marketing activities are to succeed, a market analysis must be carried out exploring the relevant factors for each individual provider. However, the essential precondition for the marketing of healthcare services is trust. The marketing of healthcare services differs from that of business management-oriented enterprises in other branches of economy. In the future the importance of marketing activities will increase.

The ‘invisible hand’ and the market for dental care

In his classic The Wealth of Nations, economist and author Adam Smith famously described how allocating resources through free markets is the best way to achieve efficiency. He wrote that, in general, the “invisible hand” always will produce better outcomes than the visible hand of central planning, regulated prices or market quotas. Health economics, the discipline in which I was trained, applies the conceptual framework of economics to health care issues. Although there are many peculiarities in the market for health care services that make it different from other markets, the economic paradigm is still incredibly useful in helping to explain the outcomes we observe in various health care markets.