Hospital Community Relations: Strategy, Ethics, and Outreach

Introduction

In order for hospitals to remain profitable or financially solvent, they must maintain positive to strong community relations. A hospital's reputation can make or break it in the public's eyes, and a hospital that demonstrates little appreciation for patients, peers, and the community will see dwindling business (Minemyer, 2017). There are numerous ways that a hospital can improve community relations when they fall short of where they should be. This paper examines what it means to have good hospital community relations and discusses several important aspects of the subject: how a community relations manager helps in healthcare, how a strategic management process can facilitate the development of positive hospital community relations, why ethical and leadership principles are vital to this relationship, how competitive advantage plays a part in hospital community relations, why there is a need to reinvent community relations, what can be learned from a case analysis, and what recommendations can be made to help generate outstanding hospital community relations.

The Community Relations Manager in Healthcare

A community relations manager in healthcare is part of the public relations department and typically wields powers that are "referent, legitimate, and expert/informational" (Bosilkovski & Moon, 2013). The community relations manager serves a tri-fold purpose: he or she is responsible for serving as a representative of the hospital — the face of the hospital projected outward to the community — and for managing perception, delivering information, and legitimizing the hospital's policies to the public.

The community relations manager works a variety of events, from fundraisers and press campaigns to organizing conventions or seminars with community organizations. This individual stays in constant contact with stakeholders, surveys interest groups, and obtains feedback regarding how the hospital is viewed by the public. With this data, the community relations manager works with others to develop a strategy to enhance the hospital's image, brand, and relationship with the community.

The community relations manager in healthcare is also tasked with identifying the needs of the community and helping the hospital to better understand those needs and how to address them. The community relations manager must be acquainted with the health issues a community faces and understand how the hospital can play a role in developing a strategy to address those issues.

Role of Community Relations and Outreach

The role of community relations and outreach is to maintain a positive connection with the people the hospital intends to serve. It is not unlike what other corporations and companies do to maintain good connections with consumers. Some describe this as a policy of corporate social responsibility — a policy developed by the organization that aims at promoting the values and ideals important to the community in which the organization operates (Turker, 2009). The role of community relations and outreach in a hospital is similar: it is to show the community that the hospital respects it and genuinely cares about what the people think.

Outreach is also conducted in order to open up a two-way flow of communication. Information and services can flow from the hospital to the people, while community members can send feedback to the hospital so that the community relations department has a clear sense of how the organization is doing with respect to helping the community, having a positive impact on people, and supporting the community's essential values. Without outreach, there is no visible connection between what the community needs and how the hospital intends to respond. Outreach provides tangible evidence of this connection and allows future action to be oriented toward the needs identified through outreach activities.

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