Experience, Hospitals and Insights- PART I

The Thought:

The trouble with most hospitals in Tier II cities have been plenty. With dissatisfied patients ( read Customers) rising up, the article is about the experience of last One Month with various doctors and Hospitals and trying to figure out the basic problem in Tier II cities. The article is a result of Qualitative research, performed over 50 samples who are employeed at various levels in the Hospital.

The first reaction towards a pain in India, is not calling up a doctor, but rather popping up a pill.
It's the irony of the country filled with most talented doctors, the marketer have been successful in building an aura which give birth to self medication.
When after continious attempts to experiment with the body, one finally decides to visit a doctor, its mostly based on peer recomendation. which in itself is a great research area.

The problem with most hospitals is two painful spots in management.
If one consider employees of Hospitals into Four Levels.

Level 1: The Doctors, the Specialist: The real Experimenter
Level 2: Assisting Doctors to specialist: The Witness of Experiemnts
Level 3: Administration Staff: The person who Moves the File, and is usually trained for everyday job.
Level 4: Supporting Staff: Those who help in other stuffs, like cleaning, garbage disposal, File maintainance etc.
Management has taken acute care towards, Level 2 and Level 4, both are sincere, and are moved by charts and as directed.
The problem is at Level 1 and at Level 3.

Level 1- The Doctor's priority is to complete as many patients as possible in the given time period, thus its common to see patients complaining of lack of understanding of prescription. One soultion can be to limit the amount of patient a doctor visits each day, thus to ensure an effective care. The other school of thought is,
India has more population than the patients, so limiting it will hamper the overall medical facility.
 The deabte continues, and so does the patient woes.

Level 3: These people are trained onces, but teachnology is changing rapidly. Latest example happened today, when at Ramkrishna Hospital, trying to do hospital discharge from 11:00 AM till 3:00 PM, the files were stuck at various departments.
The well trained staff at Cash counter, tried their best to fix a printer, and took around 50 Minutes to restart.
Yes, surely one msut give room for improvement, but the words of the person in charge speaks the dire situation
" Saheb naya software daal detein hain, boltein hain accha hai, chaar bar click karo tab ek print nikalta hai".
translation
" Management changes software very often, but this new software takes 4 clicks for one print".


This clearly speaks the state of these employees, No doubt that the probablity of making a mistake of prescription increases multifolds.

We will talk about solution to this problem in Next Post, but before we close, as promised.
Insights on What factors lead to choise/change of doctor.

An Insight:
For Women: Choice of changing/choosing a doctor is based on three critical factors
1. Recommendation.- Look for Positive Word of Mouth.
2. Experience with Doctor.- Look for Wow Experience with someone else.
3. Vicinity- Is it at a distance where she can go alone.

While these three reasons tops the Women charts, for men they are slightly different
For Men.: Choice of Changing.choosing a doctor is based on 2 critical factors
1. Recommendation.- Looks for prior experience of some trusted friend.
2. Specilization and Cost.- This is were the difference comes in, the Cost/fees of writing a prescription is pre- considered while for women, this factor is a Post consideration one.

Now, with such insight, How can a doctor/ Hospital better market themselves.
They must figure out what makes the Patient Happy.
you might be amazed to note that for being happy, the women has very different requirement than Men.
Drop in tomorrow to identify those factors.

Take care........