Healthcare Marketing: What is Salient?
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a perspective on what is "salient" or critical to the discipline of healthcare marketing by analyzing and contrasting the consumer (or patient) perspective with the institutional (or organizational) perspective. This "salience issue" is complicated by the structural problems in healthcare such as societal service systems, advances in medical technology, and the escalating costs of care. Reviewing selected studies, the paper examines how consumers face increasingly difficult health choices.Design/methodology/approach The paper examines the different priorities and goals for marketing that are implied by both patient and organizational perspectives in healthcare, focusing primarily on the excesses of the more "market based" US healthcare system.Findings Healthcare organizations need to better utilize marketing tools to inform consumers and assist their healthcare decisions. This effort needs to be balanced by healthcare organizations that can support the.