Environmental Assessment in Healthcare The healthcare industry over the past few decades has experienced numerous amounts of change. One consistent variable in this industry is, healthcare is always changing due to environmental or external factors. Environmental market scans is a valuable tool utilized by marketing departments in an organization. The five environmental forces that the assessment focuses on includes: economic, technological, social, competitive, and regulatory factors. Each one of the environmental forces must be assessed and views as one systemic machine, where all parts work in unison to achieve high performance. One organization that conducted a thorough assessment to develop a strategic marketing plan was the Rush University
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The trend of technology has been increasing rapidly over the past six years, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been attributed to the driving force of the technology trend. According to Collins (2014), “The Affordable Care Act is one of the major factors fueling the trend. Higher patient inflows cause physician groups and hospitals to merge, and those larger health care organizations require suitable technology to handle the influx of patients” (p.20). Within the rapidly expanding technological trend there are five major components that healthcare organizations are acquiring for better patient care: cloud computing, data analytics, electronic health records, medical devices, and project management software (Collins, 2014). When all five components are utilized, quality, cost, patient behavior, and transparency is greatly affected. Databases collect and aggregate quality improvement initiatives where patients can access this information when deciding where to seek medical care. This information can also help patients decide where to spend his or her money on healthcare. Statistics provided by the AHA (2014) propose that approximately 86 percent of health care CEOs believe that technology will advance healthcare organizations in the next five years …show more content…
Berkowitz (2011) defines regulation as “…rules or restrictions placed on companies by federal or state governments” (p.105). There are many different regulations regarding to competition, pricing, distribution, and promotion of marketing materials. All of these different regulations have a primary target in mind: protecting the consumer. This step of the scanning process is extremely important for RUMC or any other organization to thoroughly understand and recognize the multiple regulations set forth by the federal and state
The trend of technology has been increasing rapidly over the past six years, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been attributed to the driving force of the technology trend. According to Collins (2014), “The Affordable Care Act is one of the major factors fueling the trend. Higher patient inflows cause physician groups and hospitals to merge, and those larger health care organizations require suitable technology to handle the influx of patients” (p.20). Within the rapidly expanding technological trend there are five major components that healthcare organizations are acquiring for better patient care: cloud computing, data analytics, electronic health records, medical devices, and project management software (Collins, 2014). When all five components are utilized, quality, cost, patient behavior, and transparency is greatly affected. Databases collect and aggregate quality improvement initiatives where patients can access this information when deciding where to seek medical care. This information can also help patients decide where to spend his or her money on healthcare. Statistics provided by the AHA (2014) propose that approximately 86 percent of health care CEOs believe that technology will advance healthcare organizations in the next five years …show more content…
Berkowitz (2011) defines regulation as “…rules or restrictions placed on companies by federal or state governments” (p.105). There are many different regulations regarding to competition, pricing, distribution, and promotion of marketing materials. All of these different regulations have a primary target in mind: protecting the consumer. This step of the scanning process is extremely important for RUMC or any other organization to thoroughly understand and recognize the multiple regulations set forth by the federal and state