This paper is authored by Al Swinney, senior vice president of marketing communications for Meridian Health. The paper explores the history of marketing to consumers, the relationship between physicians and hospitals, the physician as the patient influencer, and physician-to-physician marketing programs. Swinney explains how physician-to-physician marketing programs work and the immediate impact they can have on hospital volume.

This paper, written by Kristin Baird, Baird Consulting and a senior faculty member of The Beryl Institute, outlines how mystery shopping goes beyond satisfaction surveys to discover why patients leave before they ever engage a health care provider. This paper explores the value of mystery shopping, how the shopping is done, and how healthcare organizations can turn the results into actionable improvement opportunities.

This paper, written by adjunct faculty members Britt Berrett, CEO of Medical City, and Jason Wolf, Director of Organization Development for the Eastern Group of HCA, outlines the results of a ground-breaking study.  It discusses “Seven Truths” about high performing organizations in case study format and provides actionable tips for hospital executives.

Switchboard operators and other hospital-based call centers are the front-line of the customer acquisition process. Individual healthcare organizations are losing significant dollars by providing poor customer service at this initial touch point. Savvy healthcare leaders will close this “service gap” and transform their switchboards into customer focused and outcomes oriented front-line acquisition centers.

This paper is the third in a series focused on the benefits of improving the customer acquisition process.