Kaiser Permanente’s Prevention Programs, Term Paper Example

Kaiser Permanente’s wellness and marketing prevention programs are typically designed to target a specific illness. The company begins by offering individuals important information about the illness, including statistics and signs to watch out for. After providing this friendly and helpful advice, Kaiser Permanente will include information about where to locate a clinic. It also encourages herd immunity and worksite health by providing information on how to schedule clinicians to come into the office to provide health guidance and immunizations. This is a useful method because it draws potential clients in by making them think that the services they are offering are necessary. While it is often helpful to an individual’s health to be aware of certain illnesses and to remain updated on all immunizations, the way that the company phrases this almost scares a person into thinking that the specific medical care that they are marketing is necessary. Furthermore, this method is effective because once an employer or employee becomes convinced that the medical care is necessary, Kaiser Permanente is likely to profit by conducting the test on a large group of individuals in an office setting.

Although this wellness and prevention marketing program is effective in some ways, it is also detrimental. While many individuals will be scared into believing they need the medical care that is advertised, others will see through the marketing campaign and form a negative opinion of the company. Furthermore, this method relies on the fact that offices will participate in large scale wellness programs as a partner with the company. It is difficult and expensive to recruit these partners and it is important to consider that there are other companies who offer the same service. Therefore, competition is an important consideration.

To improve the wellness and prevention marketing program, it is essential to determine what factors would make the company stand out above its competition. Since nearly all companies offer partnerships with offices and other public areas, it would be beneficial for Kaiser Permanente to offer a loyalty discount. Furthermore, to ensure that its services are used repeatedly, it could offer a discount that corresponds to the number of health and wellness events that each company has per year. Kaiser Permanente could take this effort a step further and attempt partnerships with public schools, universities, and hospitals. An example of this applies to Kaiser Permanente’s flu prevention program (Kaiser Permanente, n.d.). Currently, this program offers flu shots to patients in a clinic or office setting. However, if the necessity of vaccination was emphasized in schools and hospitals in their advertising campaigns as well, they would be more likely to attract a greater client base which would help eliminate the competition.

According to “Market Positioning and Strategy Development”, the most important aspect of initiating a successful health and wellness campaign is the ability to develop a realistic marketing strategy (Thomas, 2008). It is clear that Kaiser Permanente has already initiated a marketing strategy, but to remain competitive, it must evaluate its current position in the market and determine ways that it can improve upon its current practices. A useful tool that the company could use to further develop its marketing strategy is through use of performance analysis (Hawes et al., 1985). Performance analysis will provide Kaiser Permanente with a quantitative understanding of what marketing methods are working. To ensure a competitive edge, Kaiser Permanente should also conduct this analysis on new or abandoned techniques by other leaders in the industry. It could take advantage of this information to uncover the next step it should take in developing a new or improved marketing plan. This method is also useful because it could provide information about the success of the change in the marketing plan. After the change has been in practice for a certain period of time, the analysis could determine whether it contributed to any increase in business, whether business remained the same, or whether it decreased as a response. Other ways to gauge client reaction to the campaign would be to issue surveys to individuals on the streets who had heard of the marketing campaign in addition to those who participated in the wellness program as a consequence of the campaign.

According to the article “Beyond patient satisfaction. Broaden the scope of quality measurement by integrating the marketing view with other perspectives”, another way that Kaiser Permanente could increase its ability to compete and therefore earn more profit would be to increase its reputation by word of mouth (Turner et al., 1995). An easy way to do this would be by perfecting its medical techniques offered in its health and wellness programs and offering improved customer service. Improving efficacy and wait times is simple, and will result in customers praising company. This will in turn allow the company to receive free marketing, which will generate more business.

It is recommended that Kaiser Permanente uses a combination of all the techniques discussed above. The healthcare field is growing, and even though it is one of the larger companies, it must take care to ensure that it remains on the top. Constant analysis and examination of new marketing programs is therefore necessary.

References

Hawes JM, Rao CP. (1985). Using Importance–Performance Analysis To           Develop Health Care Marketing Strategies. Journal of Health Care Marketing,  5(4): 19-25.

Kaiser Permanente. (n.d.). Flu prevention – what you need to know to keep your employees healthy. Retrieved from             https://businessnet.kaiserpermanente.org/health/plans/ca/workforcehealth/resourcecenter/doityourself?contentid=/html/workforcehealth/cal/resourcecenter/doityourself/preventing        problems_flu.html

Thomas, R. (2008). Health Services Marketing. New York: Springer New York. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-73606-8

Turner PD, Pol LG. (1995). Beyond patient satisfaction. Broaden the scope of quality measurement by integrating the marketing view with other perspectives. Journal of Health Care Marketing, 15(3):45-53.