In an era propelled by consumer-driven health plans, health savings accounts, and perhaps soon universal health coverage, marketers are challenged to begin to shift their collective focus. The changes on the horizon are presenting hospitals with a new consumer – one who is free to choose her hospital armed with quality data, pricing information, and health coverage that’s not determined by hospital choice. Hospital marketers, today more than ever before, have the opportunity to learn from consumer trends and behavior and re-invent how they talk and, importantly, listen to their new audience in planning services.

Schizophrenic, contradictory
Robyn Waters, “trendmaster,” former Target store executive, and keynoter at the Customer Based Marketing Strategies conference in Orlando in April, says trendsetters are a schizophrenic, contradictory, and demanding purchasing group as a whole. As Waters points out in her latest book, The Hummer and the Mini, trendsetters frequently seek conflicting traits in services and products, such as low cost and high quality or conforming and unique. They value eco-friendly cleaning products and organic food, and yet they drive gas-guzzling SUVs.

Management guru Tom Peters identifies these trendsetters as mature women. That’s right, purse-carrying, child-rearing grandmothers, aunts, mothers, daughters, nieces, and female neighbors.

Peters calls them chief instigators for most U.S. household purchases, accounting for 80 percent of all spending. Specifically, women make 94 percent of all home furnishing buys, plan and purchase 89 percent of all vacations, select 88 percent of all kitchen appliances, and make 80 percent of all health care choices. But marketers already know this, right? It was women who led the revolution that forever changed maternity care. Those baby boomers demanded private rooms, large enough to accommodate a participative family, where the staff came to them to deliver the baby and then care for mother and child. You would think that providers would have integrated this kind of thinking and care into the rest of health care by now.

Figuring out what consumers want
Health care researchers so far aren’t publishing much about what women, age 50 and older, are saying they specifically want. Marketers should start to add targeted questions, such as the ones found in the accompanying sidebar, into their ongoing consumer surveys. Conduct some qualitative research – and not just focus groups. Sit down and talk to some women – former and current patients, mothers and daughters of patients, your neighbors. Ask them what’s working well in your “system” for health delivery and then what isn’t. Be prepared: 1) They’ll tell you. 2) They’ll expect you to listen. 3) They’ll want you to act.

There are a number of ways to look at what trend watchers and management gurus say and apply their thinking to health care. Some applications follow.

Bring back the best … and make it better
Waters points out that everything old is new again. Whether it’s fashion, furnishings, design, or décor, everything seems to harken back to the ’50s, ’60s, or ’70s. Think now about Dr. Marcus Welby and add a new twist: Doctors who offer patients the opportunity to enroll as members for an annual fee in return for unrestricted access. Doctors with so-called retainer or concierge practices guarantee same-day appointments and will even see patients in their homes or business locations. They’ll provide wellness coaching, monitor chronic conditions, answer questions, and more. One North Carolina group, Doctors Making Housecalls (www.doctorsmakinghousecalls.com), promotes that it welcomes Medicare and insured patients whose plans allow them to choose their physician. Widespread? Not yet. Neither were quick-care clinics in retail establishments some three to four years ago.

Get personal … customize
In The Experience Economy, authors Joseph Pine and James Gilmore elaborate on a huge driver for winning the loyalty of consumers by making the experience personal. Mass customization is the way, from my hamburger (Burger King figured it out in 1974) to my personal computer (Dell got it in 1984). There’s also my coffee (Starbucks gives 19,000 choices, and the really good baristas remember my preference). Lands’ End makes my jeans to fit me. Members of this audience also want to design their individualized car (Mini Cooper and others get it, even if their dealerships don’t).

Baystate Health in Springfield, MA, is one health care organization that does get it. Baystate is transforming three services at the time of this writing. It began by customizing and personalizing the patient’s cancer journey. Its new outpatient treatment center, the D’Amour Center for Cancer Care, features patient-centered treatment rooms where all specialists come to the patient, focusing multidisciplinary consults to accommodate the patient’s schedule. The center brings all types of supportive and treatment services into the new location to house almost everything patients will need for their care.

With successes in hand as measured by both volumes and patient satisfaction scores, Baystate set out to capture the “spirit of the child” within its children’s hospital. It created family-centered rounding in the ICU, a family advisory council, a youth advisory corps, and an “explainer” role for student ambassadors. Among the dozens of ongoing enhancements to the child and family experience, Baystate also created a new role, devoting the equivalent of two full-time staff members to the position of experience guide.

The third service, currently in development, involves the transformation of cardiovascular services. Baystate is building a new center and is in the early stages of deliberately designing the patient experience first, so the facility will harmonize with the expectations of its customers.

Many other organizations are adopting strategies similar to those of Baystate in designing new programs or facilities. Some have customer relationship management strategies and programs in place. They might even have membership programs for seniors, women, and other groups. The problem is that these programs frequently don’t go far enough. What do marketers really know about their members? What do they know about members’ purchasing habits? Are members given tools to help them manage the care they are trying to direct for others?

Imagine a Web-based service that allows the chief purchasing officer for her household – and other households, such as her parents’ – to enter all relevant health information. In turn, her trusted health care guide sends her reminders for screenings, allows her to coordinate appointments with multiple providers, and issues coupons for items she needs to manage the care of any one of her family members. What if she could chat live online with a nurse to ask questions she has about her son’s rash, her mother’s cough, her husband’s snoring, and her own fatigue? What could marketers come up with if they challenged themselves to get personal? They shouldn’t lean on HIPAA crutches and allow more nimble players to best them in this huge opportunity. Steve Case and Revolution Health (www.revolutionhealth.com) are among those players that are already there.

Luxurious commodities
Waters also talks about the trend toward luxurious commodities, such as herbal-scented dishwashing liquid at $8 a bottle. Waters reports that women are finding the soap so relaxing they are forgoing their automatic dishwasher and – silly as it sounds – indulging in aromatherapy by washing dishes by hand.

Now consider that no one is designing a hotel, conference center, or resort without including significant square footage for a spa. Many Americans are overworked, stressed, and starved for relaxation. All that stress can lead to alcoholism, obesity, insomnia, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol levels – and the probability of chronic illness.

So what if more health care providers branched out and took a piece of a multibillion-dollar industry based on luxurious commodities? Why not offer kiosks of healing essences? What about patient gowns, robes, and slippers so luxurious that patients want to buy them to take home? What about yoga classes that actually match a woman’s work schedule? How about a spa day, where a woman gets her annual gynecological physical, her yearly mammogram, and her bone density scan, along with a healthy lunch, a massage, and relaxation therapy, as well as nutritional counseling and advice to lose the 20 pounds she continues to carry around? What other luxurious commodities can organizations create that tap into disposable income and advance both the health and care in health care?

New surroundings
Planetree (www.planetree.org) can attest that the philosophy of creating a healing environment and a culture to personalize, humanize, and demystify the patient experience is taking hold. Opening its first unit in 1985, the organization now counts more than 115 member facilities in 32 states, Canada, and the Netherlands – the vast majority of which have joined in the last six years. With a hospital building boom under way that hasn’t been seen since the Hill-Burton days of the late 1940s, there never has been a better time to think of radical new approaches to create wonderful inpatient environments.

Parrish Medical Center, in Titusville, FL, won the Discovery Award from Healthcare Design Magazine and consulting firm Starizon for its spectacular environment. The hospital’s theme, “Healing experiences for everyone. All the Time,” is characterized by the building’s incredible architecture that brings the outside indoors with spaces and experiences that engage the heart, soul, and senses. The staff has adopted a culture it created, with healing at the core. The patient’s stay is personalized, offering a unique experience based on each guest’s individual preferences. (A video is available at www.parrishmed.com/about_us/awards_discovery.cfm.)

And what about noise? Why can’t hospitals fix the cacophony of beepers, intercoms, loud talk, and rattling carts and gurneys? Montefiore Medical Center in New York City recently trumpeted the success of its Silent Hospitals Help Healing, or SHHH, an initiative started two years ago by an administrative nurse manager.

Taking a page from dentists
Dentists have long been ahead of physicians in meeting the needs of consumers, from promises of no pain to soothing sounds and distracting images. Dr. Dell Goodrick, a Southern California dental practice (www.drdell.com), features a natural forest environment with chirping birds and gurgling streams. A four-dentist practice (www.dentaltlc.com) promotes itself as “Atlanta’s Fun Dental Experience” and backs up its claim with patient testimonials.

Dentists bring home another point. The elimination of many of the negative cues in dentistry has positively affected dentists’ business. Just consider the enormous growth of cosmetic dentistry. Again, disposable income goes to a transformed service. So what can health care providers do?

Homework
This article has just touched the surface of what health care marketers can do to propel their organizations in understanding and acting on trends. For additional insight, they would do well to read the following works:

The Trendmaster’s Guide: Get a Jump on What Your Customer Wants Next and The Hummer and the Mini: Navigating the Contradictions of the New Trend Landscape, both by Robyn Waters.

Trends: Recognize, Analyze, Capitalize (one of four books in the Tom Peters essential series), co-authored by Martha Barletta.

EVEolution: Understanding Women – Eight Essential Truths that Work in Your Business and Your Life by Faith Popcorn and Lys Marigold.

Marketing to Women: How to Increase Your Share of the World’s Largest Market by Martha Barletta.

The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage and The Experience Is the Marketing (PDF download from Amazon.com), both by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore.

Candace Quinn is CEO and senior strategy consultant for Brand=Experience, a marketing consulting firm based in McLean, VA. Quinn has headed marketing departments in such organizations as Inova Health System, Baystate Health, and Ancilla Systems. You can reach her at Candace@brandequalsexperience.com.

Questions to Ask Women

by Rob Klein

Here are just a few questions to specifically ask women about health care that should get the thinking process started about what this key market wants. Many of these questions can be asked in a qualitative or quantitative setting.

Q: Describe a health care experience (e.g., at a doctor’s office or in a hospital) where the caregivers really seemed to understand and respect your needs as a female. Probe: How did that make you feel?

Q: Describe a health care experience (e.g., at a doctor’s office or in a hospital) where the caregivers really did NOT seem to understand or respect your needs as a female. Probe: How did that make you feel?

Q: How good of a job are hospitals doing at recognizing the different physical and emotional needs of women and men in a health care environment? (1=Poor, 10=Excellent) Probe: What could they do better?

Q: Have you ever been to a women’s hospital? IF YES: How was that experience different from a traditional hospital that treats everyone?

Q: Describe how you are treated by a female doctor versus a male doctor.

Q: For what medical situations would you prefer to go to a women’s hospital, and for what situations would you prefer to go to a hospital that treats everyone? Probe: Why do you say that?

Q: What is the single most important health issue facing women today that is not being addressed adequately by the health care system? Probe: What role should the government play in ad-dressing these issues?

Q: If you ran a hospital, what changes would you make to the way female patients or female family members are treated? Are there any other changes you would make in how patients in general are treated, regardless of gender or age?

Rob Klein is president of Klein & Partners, Inc., a health care marketing research firm located in Hinsdale, IL. You can reach him at rob@kleinandpartners.com.