In light of the global economic changes and the increase of population worldwide, governments are resorting to reducing medical financing expenses for healthcare institutions.
Excellence in providing healthcare service and medical efficiency has become the new battle for survival in the competitive market, which requires medical institutions to review their productive capabilities and work to restructure the institution to remain in the market position and outperform competitors.
To maintain competitiveness in the healthcare field, researchers identified 6 main methods that we will address in this article.
6 Ways to Stay Competitive in the Medical Field
1. Accelerate Growth
The growth of your medical institution is an important marketing strategy to ensure your position among competitors and can be done in two ways:
- Merge among medical entities
The concept of merging can be defined as the association of two or more institutions to form a new entity, or the legal dissolution of one institution to merge with the other organization.
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- Acquisition of other medical entities
The acquisition includes the purchase of the company’s weakest shares to control management within this corporation, whether in agreement with the owner or not.
Many benefits result from the merge of institutions, including:
- Reducing production and service costs.
- Increased financial capabilities and medical efficiency.
- Improve the quality of products and services provided.
- Increasing competitiveness.
- The ability to obtain financing from international banking institutions on acceptable terms.
- It is the ideal solution for troubled and bankruptcy companies.
At the level of the medical sector, recent years witnessed many mergers and acquisitions. In 2015, it was announced that mergers and acquisitions deals for hospitals were valued at $546 billion, and the number is still increasing.
2. Choose a Promising Location Close to the Crowd
According to the latest statistics of hospital managers in the United States, it was found that 84% of healthcare providers confirm that the proximity to outpatient clinics and first aid units from places where patients gather increases their competitive strength and profits.
The healthcare market is rapidly moving towards more comprehensive patient care. In 2012, American outpatient spending increased by 136.5%, far exceeding spending on services provided to patients attending the main hospital.
This large expansion is due to the advantages of being close to the patient, as it provides you with an opportunity to access a database that is much larger than usual and provides a spread for your medical institution on a larger scale and at a lower cost.
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3. Work to Provide the Best Healthcare Service
The patient’s comfort and satisfaction with the service provided by your medical institution is the key to success, and the proof of this is that 40% of hospital owners in the United States have resorted to appointing a hospital executive director to coordinate patient complaints and various departments within the institution to reach the best service aimed at patient satisfaction.
It was also found that the use of modern medical technology in the areas of treatment and diagnosis helps increase patient satisfaction with the medical service provided, and the use of modern methods in collecting patient information reduces the burden on employees.
Previous studies have demonstrated that patient satisfaction is related to the extent to which doctors meet their demands and that hospitals can keep healthcare intact with adhering to technology and procedures designed to make it easier, faster, and more accurate will directly affect the patient’s experience of service.
4. Focus on Developing the Medical Team
The success of the medical institution depends on the formation of a skilled medical team, trained in modern techniques available in the hospital while providing good management for the team to work on improving individual skills to reduce training expenses and reduce the need to recruit specialists.
Almost 70% of health professionals worldwide are concentrated in Europe and North America, however, it is difficult to find skilled healthcare professionals, so always make sure to develop your team.
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5. Improve the Patient’s Journey inside the Hospital
The development of the hospital’s internal system depends on the ability of healthcare systems to manage patients effectively with a minimal delay during their transition between different healthcare stages.
Poor management of the patient’s journey usually results in:
- Severe congestion in reception, which may pose a risk to patients.
- Patients obtained an inaccurate diagnostic result due to insufficient time for an accurate diagnosis.
- Patients crowded into rooms due to a lack of beds.
Therefore, the patient management system is a unique and powerful tool for healthcare providers to track their patient movement throughout the care period.
Its main goal is to improve and simplify the communication between primary care physicians and the healthcare professionals and providers involved in patient care.
6. Improve Profit Margin
Without sufficient profit margins to provide the capital needed for investment, the hospital may be vulnerable to instability and inability to continue functioning.
Therefore, investment in providing modern technology, training employees in high-performance equipment, and building modern buildings is the secret of being ahead of the competition.
The presence of medical institutions in the competitive market is not impossible if the previous strategies were applied with great care, as stated by Siemens International Agency.
