Providence Portland Medical Center\'s Marketing

Providence Portland Medical Center's marketing and planning strategies have concentrated on attracting exceptionally talented physicians, staff and administrators while at the same time having to balance a mission of serving a low-income, below-poverty line area of Portland, Oregon. Initially this appears to be paradoxical yet the mission of the Medical Center, once defined (Patmas, 2006) successfully galvanized the entire value chain of the Center to exceptional service and quality levels. This was done through change management initiatives including peer reviews (Dancer, Johnson, Zauner, Burch, 1997), re-defining of key service processes across the three specialty units of Adult and Pediatric, Coronary Care and Intensive Care, and a redefined series of metrics to evaluate overall performance (Patmas, 2006). In addition to all of these factors, the Center also began instituting more effective management of claims for treatment when patients did have coverage, and when they did not, better managed claims for Medicare, Medicaid, and other forms of government payment. The Center also began sourcing and procuring locally grown food and produce, supplies and services (Weisberg, 2002) which also contributed to lower costs through greater operating efficiency and greater connection with the community. All of these factors mentioned in this executive summary may initially appear to not be related to their marketing and planning strategies, yet upon reflect they are the essence of delivering exceptional patient experiences with is the most successful catalyst there is in creating exceptional marketing strategies (Papanikolaou, Ntani, 2008). Further, empirical studies show that to the extend a healthcare center, whether it be a hospital or medical center deliberately re-engineers its internal processes to better support the delivery of exceptional customer experiences is the extent to which their branding will be seen as authentic, honest and trustworthy (Otani, Waterman, Faulkner, Boslaugh, Burroughs, Dunagan, Niezer, 2009).

Providence Portland Medical Center Marketing and the Patient Experience

Having been created primarily as one of 25 Diagnostic Related Group (DRG) hospitals in Portland, the basis of the Center's business model is provide charity care to patients needing adult and pediatric, coronary care, and intensive care while collecting Medicare, Medicaid and other forms of payment (Gee, 2006). For DRGs to be effective from a marketing and customer experience standpoint, they must be exceptionally efficient internally to manage the wide variation in cases they treat while at the same time reaching out to the community to promote these efficiencies in the form of successful treatment programs.

For Providence Portland Medical Center the focal point of their marketing strategies continues to be on promoting individualized patient success stories developed and written to illustrate expertise in the three major practice areas concentrated on. What the Center has successfully done is to personify the services they deliver by showing the success stories of heart disease patients that have recovered and are enjoying life, pediatric patient success stories that show how the Center has been able to give children the health and freedom to enjoy their childhoods, and how intensive care has saved lives. Underscoring all of these success stories is commitment of delivering exceptional patient experiences on the one hand (Papanikolaou, Ntani, 2008) and the need to continually focus on improving internal processes, from billing to patient onboarding, to make the commitments made realizable (Patmas, 2006). What is unique about Providence Portland Medical Center is their approach to integrating a strong internal focus and commitment to continual quality and process improvement as the foundation of delivering exceptional patient experiences on the one hand, and the authentic and highly credible approach to telling patient stories as their core marketing message on the other. From a planning perspective, Providence Portland Medical Center needs to keep these two initiatives continually improving to stay in step with its customer bases. The Center's staff also has gradually introduced technology only to the extent it will support the customer experience and continual process improvements to ensure the commitments made in marketing can be kept (Earnshaw, 2002). This is also a differentiating aspect of their marketing strategy as it concentrates on developing the innate ability to execute at a consistently high level internally first, and then promote this process- and customer experience-based expertise to the community.

In conjunction with this core aspect of their marketing strategy of concentrating on delivering exceptional experiences, Providence Portland Medical Center has developed an award-winning outreach programs strategy. The Center funds the Providence Community Grants Council which supports 52 different charities throughout the Portland, Oregon area. The Center has been able to successfully define a marketing strategy based on this approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). As is the case with the continual improvement of internal processes and their support of the marketing process, the Center has also been able to integrate their CSR messaging as part of their broader marketing strategies. The reliance of healthcare providers on socially responsible messaging is highly effective when put into the context of CSR initiatives that genuinely benefit a community (O'Malley, 2005). Clearly the Center has been able to attain this level of performance as their occupancy rates are on average at 75% or greater, and their control over costs has significantly improved over time (Patmas, 2006).