Infants and children have needs and vulnerabilities that are different from those of adults, especially in the management of their clinical care and all the associated information. Additionally, children's extended normal ranges of body sizes, weights, and physiologic responses require the modifications of technical, clinical, and information workflows in the provision of pediatric-specific care, which is safe. More so, children are at a high risk of medical errors from the various institutional settings in which they get surgical, medical, and psychiatric care. Some of the environments range from general community hospitals, which care primarily for adults, and the academic centers that specialize in tertiary pediatric care.
The main stakeholders in pediatric care are children and the family caregivers, who are important in the longitudinal care of the kids, especially those with special healthcare problems.
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Pediatrics play a crucial role in ensuring that children and their families access the best kind of care. For instance, pediatrics consistently fight with parents to ensure they follow the evidence-based recommendations such as safe sleep, and the use of vaccines to ensure that children remain healthy and thrive. Pediatrics also confront insurance companies to ensure that children access the necessary healthcare services. Pediatrics in Savanna, Georgia are crucial in children's healthcare. Therefore, marketing tools for pediatric care should be chosen in such a manner as to address the unique needs of this particular healthcare system.
Savannah, Georgia
Savanna was established in the year 1733 near the Savannah River. Savannah’s city estimated population in 2019 was 393,353. During this time there were 51, 375 households in which 28.5% had kids below the age of eighteen years. People between the age of 25-44 made 28.5% of the total population while children below the age of 18 made 25.6% of the population. People between 45-64 years made 19.5%, while those in 18-24 years made 13.2% of the total population. Therefore, it is evident that pediatric care which is characterized by growth tracking, immunization management, medication dosing, patient identification, and privacy is necessary for the area as the highest population is within the childbearing age, followed by children under the age of 18 years. Additionally, the area has a significant population, with low income, thus a requirement that ought to be considered when choosing the best marketing tool.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media, Referral and Person-to-Person Marketing Tools
An illness can be emotionally debilitating, such that it tends to threaten an individual's sense of wellbeing and competence to the extent of leaving him or her vulnerable. According to Kemp et al. (2017), people may lack sufficient knowledge of medical services and product offerings, thus, messages which engender any emotional responses helps one to simplify the decision-making. Therefore, it becomes important for the healthcare system to promote its products and services. Promotions refer to various techniques which can be applied to communicate with potential customers and existing clients of a product, service, or organization. Examples of marketing tools are person-to-person, referral, and advertising which can occur through social media.
The healthcare communications, which are directed to the disadvantaged people in Savannah Georgia, are likely to play a very important role in their lives. According to Elrod and Fortenberry (2017), by effectively communicating on the availability of medical services, the importance of visiting a medical clinic for screening, the benefits that can accrue from embracing a healthy lifestyle, the healthcare systems can succeed in encouraging actions, which increase wellness, health outcomes, and the quality of life among potential clients. Communications are necessary for creating attention, awareness, and influencing action to the sought audience, thus the need for an excellent choice for promoting healthcare in Savannah’s pediatric care.
Emotions in an ad involve a high degree of cognitive awareness, which simplifies decision-making, guides one's daily behavior, and influences a consumer's judgment. Thus an ad, based on feelings and emotions is essential in the formation of judgments and attitudes concerning medical services and products (Thomas, 2015). Nonetheless, emotional advertising campaigns on social media are capable of creating an enduring differentiation for a particular brand, thus reducing price sensitivity, which makes the emotional ads suitable for generating large profit compared to rational marketing.
Ads in social media elicit hope in their clients by proposing a cure, encouraging survival, or portraying a better life. Therefore, through the use of social media, the pediatric system can generate hope in the clients by highlighting the benefits of their products such as immunizations, while still offering suggestions in their services and products (Daubresse et al., 2015). Additionally, through ads, the healthcare system can portray goal-congruent outcomes, to the clients which were perhaps viewed as difficult. However, social media advertising is limited, such that it is inaccessible to underprivileged individuals in society.
Empathy is another emotion that the healthcare promotional approaches should seek to elicit in their patients. Kemp et al. (2017), assert that an empathetic individual tries to accurately understand the plight of another person through perspective-taking, in which he or she puts oneself in the situation of another. Empathy is important in competently interacting with other people and in displaying behaviors that are appropriate for a particular situation. Kemp et al. (2017) assert that the display of empathy strengthens another person’s empathy, which leads to a positive outcome. Therefore, the person-to-person marketing tool is capable of eliciting empathy in the healthcare setup. With the understanding that patients judge healthcare providers on their ability to be compassionate and to offer patient-centered type of care, the person-to-person marketing tool can successfully invest in the empathetic aspect of a client. Empathy and hope in the person-to-person marketing tool play an important role in message processing, judgment formation, and decision-making.
Hope and empathy are necessary for influencing consumption as well as in developing loyalty among the consumers, thus promotional techniques should elicit these kinds of emotions. Therefore, the person-to-person marketing tool through its empathetic capability helps to keep existing customers, convince the potential clients of the available services and find new prospects (Thomas, 2015). The person-to-person promotional method is also able to conduct market research. However, there are a variety of limitations that impact the person-to-person selling such as high costs, which are incurred in the form of, individual benefits, equipment support, and travel expenses. Additionally, the clients a person can serve are limited, which also makes the method time-consuming.
The traditional marketing tools use their employees to spread a word of mouth concerning the services of a healthcare system, while referral marketing programs depend on motivating delighted and satisfied customers, who act as the agents of promoting the products and services. Current customers are capable of providing referrals with a high lifetime value on the pediatric healthcare system. A referral-based marketing system is important in the unique healthcare system, in which the referrals are compensated directly or have increased visibility in the institution. Referral-based marketing tool has a variety of advantages in the pediatric system in Savanna, Georgia, which include accessing new customers from the disadvantaged areas, which marketing tools such as social media tools may not reach (Thomas, 2015). Additionally, the method has greater credibility because of family and friends' recommendations, which lacks in other paid advertisements.
Additionally, referral-based marketing harnesses the power of empathy and hope, from the referrals, which is a crucial aspect in healthcare promotional activities. One of the disadvantages of using the referral-program approach is that the unsatisfied customers are capable of sharing unflattering reviews concerning the healthcare system. Additionally, a healthcare system with few customers may not be able to implement the referral-marketing approach immediately due to few served clients. Therefore, an integrated marketing system is the most efficient in the healthcare system to harness the advantages of every tool.
References
Dubresse, M. et al. (2015). Effect of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising on Asthma Medication Sales and Healthcare Use. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Medicine Articles in Press, 1-25.
Elrod, J. & Fortenberry, J. (2017). Billboard Advertising: An Avenue for Communicating Healthcare Information and Opportunities to Disadvantaged Populations. BMC Health Services Research, 17(4), 787.
Kemp, E. et al. (2017). Understanding the Power of Hope and Empathy in Healthcare and Marketing. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 34(2), 85-95.
Thomas, R. (2015). Marketing Health Services (3 rd Ed.) Health Administration Press.
