Patient Satisfaction Focused Healthcare – The Importance of Adapting the Marketing Mix to the Orientations in the National Healthcare Systems

This paper examines the need for constant adaptation of the healthcare providers, in terms of dynamic adjustments of the marketing mix, with the goal to increase in their patients’ satisfaction. Given the healthcare industry specifics, the overall adaptations of entities, and accordingly, their marketing mix adjustments, are strongly influenced by the way the national healthcare systems are engineered and how they keep evolving. After an examination of the characteristics of the main four healthcare systems blueprints, the focus shifts to the analysis of how each of these influences each of the elements of the marketing mix. As the four main healthcare systems are rather versions that can co-exist in various proportions at a given time within a macro-economic frame, rather than mutually-excluding each other, the analysis regarding the implications for the marketing mix was developed on a matrix structure. The specifics of the systems, namely the national health service one, the social insurance one, the private insurance one and the direct interaction one, are evaluated in terms of the impact on the elements of the marketing mix, as both opportunities and threats arise and they must to be addressed accordingly. Thus, for the specific elements regarding the product, the price, the distribution, the promotion, as well as the personnel, the study focuses on the importance of the adaptation to create a solid ground in order to satisfy the market demand on profitable terms. Last, but not least, this article addresses the sensitive relationship between the specific marketing mix in the healthcare system context and the contemporary marketing vision striving for social responsibility and ethics. The patient is therefore placed in the centre of the processes and his satisfaction is held in high regard, in order to ensure an optimal socio-economic development.