Essay on Public Relations in Healthcare

Abstract— The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of maintaining good public relation in a healthcare unit. The public has been broadly categorized into two categories- External as well as Internal. Gone are the days when a healthcare unit was only considered at the time when a disease would arise. Fortis Hospital Ludhiana has been chosen as the area of study so that the efforts that an organization banks upon to maintain good market image can come to the light. A healthcare unit is known for the services that it provides and to make sure that a certain healthcare unit is applauded in the market for the perfect execution of its services, many new initiatives are driven by the PR team to disseminate the news. Fortis Hospital Ludhiana is also one of those hospitals where Public Relation is one of the most successful pillars to carry the efforts across the nation. These programs are driven for the External Public, patients, employees, vendors and contractual workers, suppliers, financers, stakeholders as well as all other interest groups.

Introduction

Healthcare system in the recent times has faced a lot of competition. The evolution in the field of medicine and surgery has opened many new avenues for the healthcare units to explore and offer as an end product. A healthcare unit is known for the services that it provides and to make sure that a certain healthcare unit is applauded in the market for the perfect execution of its services, many new initiatives are driven by the PR team to disseminate the news. This PR team works in bridging the gap between the healthcare unit and the publics and at the same time makes sure to create a positive image of capabilities and services. When Fortis Hospital Ludhiana was observed then it came to light that this hospital is very much active in creating positive image with the help of its frequent PR activities.

There is no doubt in the fact that like any other corporate unit, Fortis Hospital Ludhiana also has an objective that PR team determines to fulfill. The strategies are planned accordingly and then the execution takes place in the pre-decided way. Many outcomes come to the light and those outcomes leave an everlasting impression in the mind of the society.

From written word to the final display of any seminar or campaign, every minute step is planned with an agenda of fulfilling the need of promoting the services and the refection of the same is present in every event that is organized. Fortis Hospital Ludhiana leaves no stone unturned to establish a good market image of the services under different departments. Once an activity is executed, the results are analyzed and the feedback is collected in the form of the response of the society and then the future events are planned. These events vary from a simple newspaper report to a campaign that is hold for the cancer specialists. Activities from Corporate Social Responsibility to Industry Social Responsibility are also a part of PR agenda. The support that is attained from other firms while promoting a particular set of services turns out to be beneficial for PR team in both real as well as monetary wise.

Now when it comes to promotion, the target audience is not only the outside customers but also the internal employees who are a main source of spreading a good word of mouth regarding Fortis Hospital Ludhiana. There are many programs as well as the activities that are planned weekly/monthly to make sure that the satisfaction level of the employees is suitable to execute proper services.

Defining public relations:

Public Relation, termed as a persuasive communication process, is a two-way procedure that ends up in generating goodwill, co-operation as well as understanding between the organization and the concerned public. Public Relation is all about the goodwill or reputation. It is the end result of what is being done or said by a corporate house and at the same time what is being said for it. There is no doubt in the fact that every business unit has to maintain and enrich a good relationship with the concerned public in order to make sure its longest survival in this era of cut throat competition. It is the duty of the PR official to establish a cordial relationship amongst the organization and stake holders.

This concept has been accepted by the scholars that Public Relation is the most powerful tool that helps an organization to bag the public image. At the same time, it is also true that in order to have good Public Relations each organization has to believe in fair dealings. Effective Public Relations not only serve an organization in the terms of advertising its services but it also plays an impactful role to eliminate the doubts in the minds of people attached to it at the time of crises. In order to advertise a good corporate picture, Public Relations act as a mediator between the service providers as well as the concerned public.

In order to make Public Relations successful, media plays an important role as “they form a tactical approachable to influence the opinions of others and change their behaviour and creating new channels and opportunities for sale” (Alhadid & Qaddomi, 2016). Every corporate house adopts a strategy to mark a clean, good and clear picture in the market. And the strategy that is highly recommended is that “besides all aspects of communication activities (management communication, marketing communication and different concepts of organization communications) , PR strategy has the greatest influence on companies’ image” (Senija & Denar, 2015). This whole process starts when the Public Relation Officer is hired whose main aim is to improve the “vision of organizations to customers with regard to improving the mental image towards the clients, but many of those with existing allocated for Public Relations tasks are not doing their duties well, as they do not establish a strategic vision” (Alhadid & Qaddomi, 2016). At the same time, “the organization’s strategic plan should consider incorporating social responsibilities and sensitivity to diversity issues in an effort to boost organizational branding efforts” is also kept in the mind (Rivero & Theodore, 2014).

“With the formation of the internal and external image of the institution, its products and services are demanded more”(Selin, 2017) and it is also observed that more people inclined to be the workforce of that particular business house. Especially, if a firm is indulged in providing services than it becomes all the more important to establish a good image in the market so that more people could get attracted towards the corporate house.

Public relations in health care:

Whenever a person suffers from a disease then the first thing that comes to mind is to visit a heath care unit. Each unit has a plan to treat a disease that is executed by the team of physicians and doctors as well as other staff. Today, when there are numerous hospitals that are claiming to provide the best patient care there has been a certain level of competition that has ignited the revolution to leave a good impression on the target groups. This hunger to strive for a good market image has been the tool to ensure the survival of a hospital. This positive image can only be achieved when a healthcare unit has established good public relation services.

It was in Year 1970 that the importance of Public Relations in healthcare care sector achieved the limelight. Before that healthcare sector was assumed to be having a bridge between the service providers and service utilizers. Medicine has always been a profession that offers life, death and also strives for recovery. The frequent evolution of the health systems and the need of bridging the communication gap between the client (the sufferer) and suppliers (who provides cure to the suffering) have made Public Relation a need of the hour in healthcare system.

Each hospital has Internal and External Public that allows the smooth functioning of PR department. The Internal Public is broadly categorized into patients, doctors, physicians, nurses, administrative staff, as well as the families of the patients. The External Public is the combination of media and belief makers, government organizations and surroundings. (A) A good public relation department in a healthcare unit always keeps every level of public on the same page in order to make them aware of the good practices that are executed by the healthcare unit. At the same time, several activities on each level of public is driven so that a strong bond can be created in order to ensure a better market image.

Objective:

The objective of this study is to establish the understanding about the different kind of activities that are driven by the PR department of the healthcare unit. These activities are the information provider about the hospital to the external as well as Internal Public and thus lead to different level of results.

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Research methodology:

The researcher has tried to present the study about the importance of PR activities in a healthcare unit. Fortis Hospital Ludhiana has been taken as the area of study and the PR activities took place there have been served as the main resource of study for this particular research.

The research has also taken place with the literature review of research papers, books, articles and blogs.

Key findings:

Fortis Hospital Ludhiana religiously believes into the fact that a good company image is the tool that gives an entity an extra edge even if the competition is very high. This involves maintaining good relation with internal and External Public and for that PR department at Fortis Hospital Ludhiana makes frequent efforts.

The in-house website of the healthcare unit, Facebook updates, in-house journals, newspaper press releases are the sources that can easily be cited to refer back these events.

Activities for internal public:

Doctors, Physicians, nursing staff, vendors, contractual workers and administrative department play an important role in a Hospital. Fortis Hospital Ludhiana leaves no stone unturned to ensure their frequent growth and mental satisfaction.

Programs such as Empathy Building- Walk into their Shoes- Reflecting Empathy, Grooming, Learning Forums and Service Excellence are held frequently to ensure the regular growth of the employees.

Apart from participation in different programs, awards and appreciations are also distributed to highlighted the talented employees and motivate others. Fortis Hospital Ludhiana also believes in celebrations and thus birthdays, occasions and festivals are celebrated to make sure that employees are enjoying coming to hospital every day.

Patients and their families are the vital part of Internal Public. Right from filling up the admission form at the reception to the time of their discharge, they are given treatment in such a way that they may take the feel of being important. For this, Patient Experience Department collects feedback from the patients time to time and submits that to the PR department that eventually is served as the yardstick for improvement.

Patient’s First and LEAP- (Listen, Empathize, Apologize and Problem Solving) are the names of such programs that are organized by PR department in association with Training Department of Fortis Hospital Ludhiana.

These activities emphasis the fact that the patients and their attendants are always on the top when it comes to provide services.

Activities for external public:

In order to promote the community relations and ensure smooth public affairs, a campaign SEWA was driven by Fortis Hospital Ludhiana during the time of demonetization in year 2016. People queued outside the banks and ATM’s were offered water and food as a community service relation activity.

Industry Social Responsibility is also one of the many PR driven activities. In this aspect, Fortis Hospital Ludhiana has successfully executed many sessions of empathy building on nursing care and common first aid acts. Many upcoming educational institutes have been visited to deliver guest lectures that in return have resulted into the generation of good word of mouth.

A Ray of Hope: The event Ray of Hope turned out to be a milestone where Liza Ray was invited as the Chief Guest to address the cancer patients. The message went out so well that the cancer patients turned out very positive. This event happened to bridge a gap between the public who struggles due to cancer and made them connected to the hope. Fortis Hospital Ludhiana tried to establish a direct connect with the cancer patients through this particular event by providing an assurance to them that they will be treated with utmost empathy.