Reference no: EM132186354

The administrator at Alan Louis General Hospital confronted a problem that he hoped research could help solve. Alan Louis General, although a good hospital, was smaller and less well-known than most other hospitals in Corpus Christi, Texas. In its area alone, it competed with 10 other medical facilities. Alan Louis needed a “position” that it could call unique to attract patients to fill its beds. For a long time, the Alan Louis administrator, Sven Rapcorn, had believed in the principle that truth will win out. Build a bet-ter mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. Erect a better hospital and your beds will always be 98% filled. Unfortunately, Rapcorn learned, the real world seldom recognizes truth at first blush. In the real world, more often than not, perception will triumph. Because people act on perceptions, those perceptions become reality. He decided to conduct a communications audit to help form a differentiable “position” for Alan Louis General. Interview Process As a first step, Rapcorn talked to his own doctors and trustees to gather data about their perceptions not only of Alan Louis General but also of other hospitals in the community. He did this to get a clear and informed picture of where competing hospitals ranked in the minds of knowledgeable people. For example, the University Health Center had something for everybody—exotic care, specialized care, and basic bread-and-butter care. CC General was a huge, well-respected hospital whose reputation was so good that only a major tragedy could shake its standing in the community. Mercy Hospital was known for its trauma center. And so on. As for Alan Louis itself, doctors and trustees said that it was a great place to work, that excellent care was provided, and that the nursing staff was particularly friendly and good. The one problem, everyone agreed, was that “nobody knows about us.” Attribute Testing The second step in Rapcorn’s research project was to test attri-butes important in health care. He did this to learn what factors community members felt were most important in assessing hos-pital care. Respondents were asked to rank eight factors in order of im-portance and to tell Rapcorn and his staff how each of the sur-veyed hospitals rated on those factors. The research instrument used a semantic differential scale of 1 to 10, with 1 the worst and 10 the best possible score. Questionnaires were sent to two groups: 1000 area residents and 500 former Alan Louis patients. Results Tabulation The third step in the research was to tabulate the results in order to determine community priorities. Among area residents who responded, the eight attributes were ranked accordingly: 1. Surgical care—9.23 2. Medical equipment—9.20 3. Cardiac care—9.16 4. Emergency services—8.96 5. Range of medical services—8.63 6. Friendly nurses—8.62 7. Moderate costs—8.59 8. Location—7.94 After the attributes were ranked, the hospitals in the survey were ranked for each attribute. On advanced surgical care, the most important feature to area residents, Laredo General ranked first, with University Health Center a close second. Alan Louis was far down on the list. The same was true of virtually every othe attribute. Indeed, on nursing care, an area in which its staff thought Alan Louis excelled, the hospital came in last in the minds of area residents. Rapcorn was not surprised. The largest hospitals in town scored well on most attributes; Alan Louis trailed the pack. However, the ranking of hospital scores according to former Alan Louis patients revealed an entirely different story. On surgical care, for example, although Laredo General still ranked first, Alan Louis came in a close second. Its scores improved similarly on all other attributes. In fact, in nursing care, where Alan Louis came in last on the survey of area residents, among former patients its score was higher than that of any other hospital. It also ranked first in terms of convenient location and second in terms of costs, range of services, and emergency care. Conclusions and Recommendations The fourth step in Rapcorn’s research project was to draw some conclusions to determine what the data had revealed. He reached three conclusions: 1. CC General was still number one in terms of area hospitals. 2. Alan Louis ranked at or near the top on most attributes, ac-cording to those who actually experienced care there. 3. Former Alan Louis patients rated the hospital significantly bet-ter than did the general public. In other words, thought Rapcorn, most of those who try Alan Louis like it. The great need was to convince more people to try the hospital. Rapcorn was confident that the data he had gathered from the research project were all he needed to come up with a win-ning idea. He then set out to propose his recommendations. Questions 1. What kind of communications program would you launch to accomplish Rapcorn’s objectives? 2. What would be the cornerstone the theme of your com-munications program? 3. What would be the specific elements of your program? 4. In launching the program, what specific steps would you follow both inside and outside the hospital to build support? 5. How could you use the Internet to conduct more research about area hospitals and residents’ perceptions of the care at these hospitals? How could you use the Internet to research the effectiveness of the communications program you implement