Gearing Up For Population Health, Part 3: So Many Problems, So Few Resources
// By Susan Dubuque //
Last year Strategic Health Care Marketing published a series of three articles on Racing to Wellness. This year we will delve further into the evolution of our profession in a rapidly changing environment. As we move away from conventional promotions intended to drive volumes, we will explore the reinvention of marketing and communications with a different objective—to improve health and support wellness as we prepare for the advent of population health management.
A number of years ago, I worked as the director of marketing and public relations for a hospital. I clearly remember some days I felt like everyone was pulling and tugging on me. All the departments had marketing needs and their directors wanted a piece of my time and a chunk of my budget—and they wanted it now. But, like every other marketing department in the country, there just were not enough hours in the day or dollars in the till to go around. That meant making choices—sometimes tough choices—of how I would deploy my organization’s meager resources to do the most good.
As you look around your organization and your community and evaluate all the health needs, you might get the same feeling. There is much work to be done—so many health issues to be addressed—and not enough staff time or money to make a dent in even a fraction of them.
Perhaps you face a slightly different but related challenge. Many health care systems are starting to recognize the need to step up their health improvement game. They have a sincere desire to take an active role in managing the health of the populations they serve—but they simply don’t have a clue where to begin.