Jackson Memorial Hospital is a credited, nonprofit tertiary care hospital. It is the primary teaching hospital for the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. It is a medical system that offers world-class care to all people who seek treatment from the healthcare facility. The hospital has over 1,550 registered beds, and it is a center for health research. It also houses the Ryder Trauma Center – the only pediatric and adult level 1 trauma center in Miami-Dade County. The hospital provides treatment and medical services in a wide range of areas including 24/7 emergency, hyperbaric medicine, dermatology, breast health, oncology, bloodless medicine, surgery, cardiology, gynecology, otolaryngology, gastroenterology, nephrology, HIV/AIDS, neurosurgery, neurology, orthopedics, obstetrics, pediatrics, pathology, surgery, stroke, transplant urology, rape treatment, radiology, reproductive endocrinology, pulmonology, and Ryder Trauma Center.
In particular, Jackson Memorial Hospital is at the growth stage and maturity stage of the product life cycle. The growth stage is when the product begins selling at a much quicker rate ( Cassina et al., 2019) . Also, in this phase, the public becomes increasingly aware of the company's products, and word of mouth starts spreading. The capabilities of the product are now known, and product development has matured. The maturity stage is when the sales of a product start peaking, with strong demand and the service being booked out ( Cassina et al., 2019) . Besides, the products at this phase begin competing with new options being introduced into the market. Today, Jackson Memorial Hospital is at the growth stage because it is still introducing new healthcare services in the market, and most of its services are selling at a higher rate. Similarly, the public is aware of the health services offered at the hospital, and its services are recognized for its high quality and safety to patients. As well, the hospital is also at the maturity stage, because some of its services are at peak, and their demand is so strong that they become booked out sometimes. Besides, the healthcare services offered at the facility are competing with new services that are being launched in the market.
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Strategy to Improve Marketing Mix
One of the key strategies which the hospital could use to enhance its marketing mix is by analyzing its competition. Analyzing its competition would be very crucial in shaping the hospital's marketing strategies ( Griffiths, Fenton & Fletcher, 2019). In analyzing the competition, the hospital would seek to know where it stands with its customers, where its competitors stand with its customers, the unexpected competitors it might be ignoring, and the overall trends in the healthcare sector ( Massingham & Pomering, 2017) . It would help the hospital determine its strengths and shortcomings within the market, and thus identify the areas which it needs to improve on in its marketing mix, and the strategies which give it a unique competitive advantage.
According to Barksdale & Harris (2016), portfolio analysis involves examining the elements included in the product mix to make decisions that are expected to enhance the overall return. One benefit which the hospital would get from conducting a portfolio analysis is that it would facilitate the hospital in identifying services that are not cost-effective at all, and those which are highly valuable. One advantage of portfolio analysis is that the results of the analysis would point to the services which should be taken out of the market or those which need an allocation of fewer resources ( Chiu & Lin, 2019). For example, by conducting portfolio analysis, if the hospital identifies pathology services as being on low demand in terms of the patients requiring that service, it could reduce its investment on that service, and invest in another service, say oncology, which is on high demand. Also, portfolio analysis could enable the facility to identify the services with higher potential and those which it could increase its efforts and investments, to improve their quality ( Seifert, Tancrez & Biçer, 2016). For instance, the hospital can identify Ryder Trauma Center as having higher potential, and thus commit more efforts and investments to it, to enhance and develop the services offered to the patients.
Survey
In surveying to identify the patients’ expectations about the delivery and accessibility of the services which the hospital provides, the exercise would require a well-structured assessment. The first question that would be included in the survey is the kind of services the patients expect to receive. In understanding the patients' expectations about service delivery, it is vital first to understand the type of service they would be seeking. The second question that would be included in the survey is the amount of time taken waiting in the reception area, and the efficiency of the check-in process. Also, the survey will need to ask the patients about the time taken in waiting in the examination room.
Further, the survey would include questions regarding how the patients were received by the hospital staff, including the courtesy and friendliness of the receptionist, the caring concern of the nurses and medical assistants, the helpfulness of the individuals who helped the patient with their billing, and the professionalism of the staffs who attended to the patients. Furthermore, to understand the patient's expectations, the survey should capture the patient's visit with the providers – physician assistant, doctor, a nurse practitioner. The possible questions to include in the survey are the willingness of the provider to carefully listen to the patient, whether the provider took time to answer the patients' questions, the amount of time the doctor spent with the patient, thoroughness of the examination, and the advice provided to the patient on ways to stay healthy. All these questions would help determine what the patients expect in terms of service delivery.
References
Barksdale, H. C., & Harris Jr, C. E. (2016). Portfolio analysis and the product life cycle. Long Range Planning , 15 (6), 74-83.
Cassina, J., Critelli, I., Binotti, L., Coscia, E., & Borgia, S. (2019). Tools and Procedures to Embed and Retrieve Product-Service Lifecycle Knowledge. In Models, Methods and Tools for Product Service Design (pp. 63-81). Springer, Cham.
Chiu, C. C., & Lin, K. S. (2019, July). Rule-Based BCG Matrix for Product Portfolio Analysis. In International Conference on Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Parallel/Distributed Computing (pp. 17-32). Springer, Cham.
Griffiths, M., Fenton, A., & Fletcher, G. (2019). 4.1 Competitor analysis. Strategic Digital Transformation: A Results-Driven Approach .
Massingham, P. R., & Pomering, A. A. (2017). Introducing Knowledge Management to the Marketing Mix.
Seifert, R. W., Tancrez, J. S., & Biçer, I. (2016). Dynamic product portfolio management with life cycle considerations. International Journal of Production Economics , 171 , 71-83.
