How can the importance of the patient journey be presented to the skeptics? What value beyond promotion can be conveyed? Is there a role of engagement that can be pr

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Essentials of Health Care Marketing, Fifth Edition Eric N. Berkowitz

The Concord Clinic, in recent years, had developed a web presence for the group. This was a major discussion among the partners who historically debated for a long time when they had run their first advertisement several years ago. Now, there was a discussion among the partners to expand the web and to actually consider a larger social media presence, which was the result of a core contingent of younger physicians.

The Concord Clinic Located in a major city in the Southwest for sixty years, the Concord Clinic is a large primary care group with some fifty physicians and a large number of physician extenders. The group expanded its practice locations in recent years to five satellites and over the last five years has also added six pediatricians. The age distribution of the doctors is such that 35% are over the age of 60, 25% are between the ages of 50 and 59, and 25% are between 40 and 49, with the balance below 40.

Historically, the group had done little promotion, as most of its growth had been through word-of-mouth as the metropolitan area itself expanded. As the Southwest grew, other practices also began to recruit more physicians, and many of the hospitals also began to employ their own physicians and establish primary care satellites. In recent years, the Concord Clinic began to do some advertising and recently, at last year’s board retreat, began to actually discuss the need for a marketing director or an assistant administrator who would have mar- keting as one of their major areas of responsibility. They ultimately decided to go with an assistant administrator, as many physicians felt there was no need to dedicate resources to a separate marketing person.

The Gang of Four At the mid-year meeting of the partnership, the four youngest members of the physician partnership suggested the need to expand the social media presence of the group practice. The group felt that there was an increasing need to recognize that people in the community were on blogs, Facebook, and other sites such as Pinterest, either connecting with friends or searching for information on practices. Some of the older doctors were not too supportive of the remarks. In fact, one of the senior members in the group said, “I don’t want to sound negative about this, but I for one, don’t go on tweet, do not do MySpace, and never looked at Facebook. I think it is mostly young kids who are into that. If a person uses that, is that who we want?”

A few of the other physicians agreed, but several of the physicians were silent and shuffled some papers, noticeably uncomfortable. Finally, the younger physician spoke up. “John, I know that you are right. Not everyone is on all those things like Facebook, but the reality is today, a lot more people are. I think we need to realize that people think about where they are going to go for care before they call our office. We need to think about how we connect with the people before they walk in and how we stay connected with them every step of the way. I am afraid that we live in a great place. People, and I mean other doctors, also want to live here. There is a lot of competition now. We need to stay connected with our patients, and social media will help in that process.”

“Okay,” said John. “We have another lunch meeting in two weeks. Show us how this stuff will keep them connected to us on their so-called journey. I just hope I don’t have to tweet.”

“Don’t count yourself out,” said Mike, one of the gang of four members, with a smile as he got up to leave. It is two weeks later. You are up at the luncheon, and John is looking at you.

The Concord Clinic and the Gang of Four CASE STUDY