The essence of the hospital is to provide medical technology services, the customer's perception of the hospital is also mainly formed through the medical technology services received, which is the fundamental reason for customers to choose the hospital. There is no medical technology as the basis and premise, only the service brand, then the hospital and the hotel there is no difference. If there is no medical technology standard and quality as a guarantee, the cultural brand will fall into the empty rhetoric
Private hospitals to take the specialties to build a technical brand, not only the need to cope with external competition, but also the necessity of its internal development. With the implementation of the new policy of health care reform, the development of private hospitals does not seem to suddenly increase the space between the pressure of competition than in the past has intensified the trend, how to highlight their uniqueness and advantages, is the key to the further development of private hospitals.
Strategic transformation of private hospitals
The State Council on April 6, 2009 issued a new health care reform views, is widely interpreted as the development of private hospitals to untie. After more than two years of actual operation, the development of private hospitals does not seem to be more space, but by the "strong hardware and software strength of the public hospitals on the top of the 'Tarzan's top' of the worry, the next to cope with the community health service stations of the prairie fire trend" on both sides! Caught in the opinion of the introduction of the policy support before the lack of strength, lack of human resources and other issues are far from being improved, it can be said that the private hospitals are facing the competitive situation is becoming more and more serious.
From the viewpoint of the development of China's private hospitals, it has gone through three stages of development (see Table 1). Currently in these three stages of private hospitals exist, in the central cities, provincial capitals, in the latter two stages of private hospitals will be more. Of course, because of the characteristics of domestic medical resource allocation, public hospitals are mostly piled up in these cities, the latter two types of private hospitals face more intense competition.
In the face of severe competition, private hospitals to develop, strong, must be strategically transformed, that is: from the comprehensive, no technical characteristics of the advantages, to specialties, specialized positioning, with special technical advantages; from the homogenization of the comprehensive hospital to the specialty characteristics of the hospital transformation; from the short and quick development to the sustainable development of the transformation; from the edge of the non-medical insurance market to the mainstream medical insurance market transformation; from the human cost type to the human assets type transformation; from the human cost type to the human assets type transformation; from the human cost type to the human assets type transformation. labor-cost-based to human-asset-based; and from advertising to strategy- and brand-oriented integrated marketing, emphasizing non-advertising marketing.
The strategic transformation of the above-mentioned private hospitals highlights the orientation of "technology, specialized disease characteristics and brand". This is the application of Michael Porter's competitive differentiation strategy in the medical field. And these three orientations, obviously technology is the first, is the basis of the latter two. Therefore, the above transformation, if further summarized, is "from no technology brand to technology brand" transformation.
What is a hospital technology brand
Hospitals are technology-intensive service organizations, in the many factors affecting the patient's medical treatment, technology is the primary factor in determining the patient's medical treatment is widely known, but there is a difference in the perception of the technology brand.
Technology brand
Technology brand, refers to the enterprise in the process of brand building and dissemination, the "technology" as the core of brand building, all other brand elements are the core of the standard design, unification and planning of the brand. This concept has been the subject of many articles, but it is still debatable.
Technology brand for personal branding, technology to describe their skills, knowledge, the concept is still extended. But for a group, a team, to technology to summarize the skills, knowledge, systems and organizations, it seems a little weak and generalized. For such a brand of technology, it must be clarified by a technology system. With the development of social demand and technology itself, a single technology has been difficult to solve the production problem, the need to combine a variety of technologies together or in the same product using a variety of technologies, which will inevitably produce a series of related technologies. This technology and other technologies in accordance with certain technical purposes, closely related and constitute an organic whole with a hierarchical structure, is the technology system (Liu Xiaoling "on the ecological system of technology"). Obviously, for the hospital, its technology brand connotes the technology should be technology system.
Technology system
Technology system is a form in the process of technology evolution. In the process of technology system formation, through innovation, through the conceptual materialization, knowledge integration, organizational construction and other processes, so that the technology has become a systematic, institutionalized, organized complexity of the technology system. In addition to the technical structure, the technical system should also include the institutional structure, organizational structure, and knowledge structure (Figure 1).
Hospital technology brand
Hospital technology brand is the special image of the hospital's medical technology level in the minds of customers, referring to the technology system that the hospital has in the minds of customers, including the technology capability system and the technology innovation capability system (Lv Yubo, Zhuang Yiqiang, "Hospital Brand Strategy Development Facts").
The difference between technology and technology system and technology brand lies in the fact that technology and technology system is owned by a certain person or a certain team, which is objective and has no relationship with customer's perception. The technology brand is perceived by the customer and is subjective. A hospital's technology brand consists of two parts: the technology system and customer perception management (Figure 2).
For hospitals, the technology brand refers to the brand constructed on the basis of the technology system, and the personal technology brand is only a stage component of it.
The importance of constructing technology brand
The importance of hospital technology brand is reflected in the following aspects:
Foundation and prerequisite for constituting a hospital brand
Among the many factors affecting patients' access to medical care, technology is the primary factor determining patients' access to medical care. A survey found that among the five aspects that impressed patients the most, medical technology accounted for 51%, services accounted for 23%, while access to the environment, hospital location and charging price accounted for 13%, 11% and 2% respectively, reflecting that patients' perception of hospital branding is still dominated by medical technology.
The essence of hospitals is to provide medical technology services, customer perception of hospitals is also mainly formed through the medical technology services received, which is the fundamental reason for customers to choose the hospital. There is no medical technology as the basis and premise, only the service brand, then the hospital and the hotel there is no difference. If there is no medical technology standard and quality as a guarantee, the cultural brand will fall into the "empty words" in the arena.
Therefore, the construction of technical brand is to build the foundation and premise of the hospital brand.
The real source of lasting differentiation of medical services
Some research results that the homogenization of medical technology is very serious, therefore, the construction of the service brand is the source of brand differentiation. Clearly, this is putting the cart before the horse. The homogenization of medical technology exists, but only within a certain range of low-level homogenization, for example, a famous doctor can use "counterpart support", "technical exchanges" and other names in a number of hospitals to carry out medical technology services, which can be regarded as medical technology to a certain degree of homogenization. This can be regarded as a certain degree of homogenization of medical technology; and then, for example, the same medical equipment, equipment, etc., can also be regarded as the homogenization of medical technology. But such homogenization has nothing to do with the differences between technology brands.
The reason why there is a difference between an individual's technology brand and a specialty technology brand and a hospital technology brand is that there is a difference between an individual's technology and a technology system. Individual medical services in different hospitals, does not really constitute the specialty and hospital technology brand of the same. Medical devices, equipment, the same reason. It can be said that the competition between hospitals, in fact, the essence of the competition between individual doctors has gone beyond, and has become a specialty, the hospital's technical system of competition.
The customer's perception of the hospital is mainly from the medical technology services, through the experience of medical technology services, the formation of the customer's feeling of medical treatment, through the comparison with the expectations of the formation of satisfaction, as well as the recognition of the hospital's brand image. Obviously, the medical technology service here will not be the perception of a single technology, but the perception of specialties, hospital medical technology system. Because the technology system is the primary factor in the customer's choice of hospital, the most central factor in the brand image formed by the customer through his or her own medical experience remains the hospital's technology brand.
Therefore, the technology brand is the real source of differentiated competition.
The most reliable guarantee for hospital operation to obtain good benefits
Hospitals can not only improve the quality of medical care, ensure the safety of patients' lives, and satisfy the core needs of customers by constructing a technology brand, but also help patients to quickly find the medical services they need, reduce the time and energy spent in the search process, and lower the cost of choice.
The emphasis on technology, especially on the central role of technology in the customer's mind, that is, the establishment of technology brands, has completely reversed the traditional "scale effect" paradigm, and replaced it with: with the establishment and enhancement of the technology brand, the cost will be increased, but the number of customers to increase the speed of the more price-sensitive, presenting the so-called "scale effect" paradigm, the so-called "scale effect" paradigm. Insensitive, showing the so-called "advantageous agglomeration, the winner takes all" phenomenon. At present, the domestic brand hospitals are often overcrowded, the expert number in advance booking may not be able to get, "traffickers", "backdoor" and other malpractices can be seen everywhere. This is from the service brand, is a fatal problem, but patients still tend to rush, the formation of the more well-known specialists, the more patients to see the doctor, the less comfortable so a strange spiral.
This is actually a very normal consumer psychology, the customer's dominant or core needs to meet the lower his expectations of secondary needs or ancillary needs. Satisfaction increases, and customer loyalty increases accordingly.
The above example also proves that the technology brand is the most reliable guarantee for hospital operation to obtain continuous good benefits and win customer loyalty.
The pursuit of innovation and development of the guarantee
Hospitals are talent-intensive service organizations, the lack of talent has become a source of water, do not talk about innovation, to develop are difficult. And in the talent "selection", "use", "education", "stay" 4 aspects, everywhere you can see technology The power of the brand.
Hospitals with technology brand, must be the place where talents aspire to, will become the talent "high ground", do not need hospitals to spend too much effort to fight, the talents will be scrambling to squeeze in; in the application of talent must have its own unique features, such as the configuration of the professional, the organization of the process, the acquisition of equipment, the choice of topics The space is relatively much larger; the construction and structure of the talent team, relatively more systematic and complete; internal and external incentives will be relatively more balanced, material gains, knowledge acquisition, social respect, etc., will make the talent can not go.
Hospitals have talent, retain talent, innovation and development is guaranteed.
The key to getting government support
The government's resources are limited, and the government's duty is to enable the people to look after the patients, which is the first priority. Therefore, those hospitals that have won the praise of patients and gained good economic benefits because of their technology brands will receive policy, technology access and even financial support from the government. This is the nature of the medical industry decided: the advantage of agglomeration, the winner takes all.