Health Marketing Quarterly

Pricing of stents is being questioned by healthcare stakeholders due to large differences in price of its product types and its variation across different markets. The stent pricing literature published during 1997-2017 were reviewed besides inputs from industry experts to identify initial key pricing drivers. Interpretive structural modeling was used to build priority for checking the price rise in emerging markets like India. Lack of regulation besides other drivers like R&D cost and price of substitute was found to be important drivers of high prices...

This study sought to understand low income, ethnically diverse individuals' needs, comprehension, and opinions of comparative quality information as presented in state Medicaid health plan report cards (HPRCs). Twenty-two focus groups were conducted with urban and rural Medicaid recipients in three ethnic groups. Results showed the wording of some domains was misunderstood and an overabundance of domains that are irrelevant to the individual attenuated attention. Combinations of visual and verbal information and well-organized designs aided attention and comprehension...

Researchers have overlooked how poor consumers judge service quality in health care settings in Latin America. This research addresses this void by exploring how vulnerable consumers evaluate quality in a public hospital. The results show that vulnerable consumers evaluate hospitals on service delivery process, physician-patient relationship, and medical service reliability. Vulnerable consumers judge health care quality foremost on a provider's ability to provide them with fairness. The results also show that vulnerable consumers view the quality of their relationship with a physician just as important as reliability...

This article describes the research to develop message for fluorosis behavior change communication campaign. Using a posttest only with control experiment the study investigates the impact of perceived risk associated with advocated behavior (RISK-AB) and perceived risk associated with existing behavior (RISK-EB) on the effectiveness of framed fluorosis messages. Findings suggest that positive-frame is more appropriate when RISK-AB is high and RISK-EB is low or RISK-AB is low and RISK-EB is high or both RISK-AB and RISK-EB are low...

This study examines how consumers who responded to direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising by either talking with their doctors or seeking the Internet differ from those who did not respond to DTC advertising in a number of meaningful ways. This exploratory study provides an initial look at factors that are influential in discriminating information responders from nonresponders to DTC Rx ads. Consumers more attentive to and having more positive attitudes towards Rx ads and consumers having lower trust in their doctors and perceiving higher empowerment by Rx ads are more likely to respond for additional information after seeing Rx ads...

This article proposes a new strategic framework to assist healthcare organizations in achieving great patient experiences in the healthcare setting. We synthesize models of practice and literature relevant to the patient experience in order to propose the four Ps of patient experience. Key levers used in this model are: (a) trained autonomous physicians, (b) multidisciplinary partners, (c) alternative places of care delivery matched to patient conditions and needs, and (d) standardized yet flexible processes...

Providing insight into healthcare consumers' behaviors and attitudes is critical information in an environment where healthcare delivery is moving rapidly towards patient-centered care that is premised upon individuals becoming more active participants in managing their health. A systematic review of the literature concerning healthcare market segmentation and data mining identified several areas for future health marketing research. Common themes included: (a) reliance on survey data, (b) clustering methods, (c) limited classification modeling after clustering, and (d) detailed analysis of clusters by demographic data...

Research on effectiveness of DAA is limited. Existing researches explore impact of DAA only on relationship between drug manufacturers and consumers. However, in reality, pharma marketing revolves around three major stakeholders: the pharmaceutical companies, physicians and consumers. Pharmaceutical professionals on behalf of drug manufacturers have last mile connectivity with end users and they are an important stakeholder in this entire marketing relationship network. So, it is important for marketers to capture views of pharma professionals in addition to physicians and consumers...

We explore how reliance on part-time medical staff affects operational and medical outcome performance in two general surgery departments Whereas prior research has indicated that operational performance is positively associated with medical performance, we find that heavier reliance on part-time practice may deteriorate operational performance but not necessarily medical-outcome performance. For so-called "complex" patients, reliance on part-time practice may even override the effect of patients' characteristics on medical-outcome performance...

Drawing upon data from the first two years of a statewide school-based buzz-centered health communication campaign that encouraged high school students to adopt healthy behavior, this article finds that the buzz marketing component increased campaign awareness among students in participating schools compared to those in the comparison schools, but there was no significant difference between their health attitudes. Furthermore, attitude toward the campaign mediated the effect of buzz exposure on health attitudes...

Given the challenges in patient non-adherence and the lack of training in healthcare providers' communication and in application of bedside manners, this manuscript suggests an innovative approach for physicians working with patients by applying the marketing literature's seven-step sales process. This article explores ways to apply the sales process to healthcare providers' interactions with patients. This approach views the healthcare interaction with patients as a sales scenario and is shared by connecting existing marketing literature that delineates specific selling tactics to examples of those tactics in the healthcare environment...

Given that prevention is crucial to long healthy life and restraining escalating health care costs, this study examines social media and networking (SM&N) needs among health consumers regarding preventive health. Results showed the most important SM&N needs included: education about health issues, connecting to a support group, knowing the implications of health condition, opportunities and understanding of preventive health care, and tracking physical activity. Among demographic groups women, younger aged groups, and African Americans considered SM&N needs to be more important...

This study examines hospital brand communities to improve the understanding of what patients value and how they view the opinions and experiences of other community members. Results from the empirical analysis of brand communities of 364 hospitals involving over 22,000 patient reviews on Yelp.com show that the brand community influences patient decision making in a number of ways. While determining the usefulness of reviews, online hospital review readers consider a combination of factors like affective language, the communication, environmental conditions, and quality of care provided in the hospital, and to a lesser extent the responsiveness of the provider...

This study investigates current attitudes and opinions toward pharmacies' advertising. The purposes of this study were to determine (a) consumers' attitudes toward advertising by pharmacies and (b) whether age, race, income, marital status, occupation, education, sex, and number of children in household of the consumer accounted for any significant difference in attitudes toward pharmacies that advertise. The intent was to discover information that would be useful to pharmacies in planning marketing strategies and improving the quality of their advertising...

The literature shows that the prominence of risk disclosure influences consumer responses to direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. However, little is known about the psychological process whereby disclosure prominence exerts its influences on health beliefs and behavior. Based on a review of the literature on health cognition and behavior, the current study proposed and tested a model to show that risk disclosure prominence affects consumers' drug choice intention through the mediating roles of awareness of drug adverse reactions (ARs), perceived control over ARs, and perceived risk of ARs...

The study identified which of the four facilitators (themselves, agents, insurers, or doctors) consumers are most likely to use when they travel for various medical procedures. A survey conducted between 2011 and 2014 yielded 964 responses. The multinomial logistic regression results showed that being 51-64 years old was positively related to going on their own or using agents to arrange for knee replacements. Having a high school education or less was positively linked to using both agents and insurers to facilitate knee replacements, whereas having a bachelor's degree was negatively associated with going on their own for stem cell therapy...

Celebrity endorsement has been proved to be a very powerful tool in health campaigns. This study examined how celebrity-issue matchup presented in utilitarian and hedonic appeals influences attitude toward the video, perceived issue severity, and behavioral intentions in the context of ALS communication. The findings showed that celebrity-issue matchup condition outperformed nonmatchup condition in generating positive attitude and behavioral intentions. The results also indicated that utilitarian appeal with matchup condition triggered significantly greater behavioral intention than that with nonmatchup condition...

Whereas advertisements strive to increase revenue, PSAs work to educate and inform. Even though both share the similar goal of persuasion, advertising tends to lead to more effective sales, unlike PSAs, which can have little effect on audience behaviors. Using a systematic, quantitative content analysis, this study examines emotional appeals and viewer engagement in safe-sex PSAs and condom advertisements in online videos (N = 132). PSAs with humor appeals received more viewer attention in terms of views, comments, and ratings than humorous advertisements...

The authors examined the influence of social media involvement on health issues in sexual and gender minorities (SGMs). Demographic and technological characteristics of social media users and nonusers were identified, and the influence of social media involvement on these factors was assessed for its potential to influence health information needs and preferences. A survey of 2,274 SGM individuals revealed that age, sexual orientation, number of Internet access points, and use of smartphones predicted levels of social media involvement...

The purpose of this research study was to conduct a content analysis of commercial surrogacy websites to explore how surrogacy is marketed to intended parents. The researchers developed a template to code website data, and a total of 345 website pages were reviewed. Websites depicted surrogacy as a solution to a problem, privileged genetic parenthood, ignored the potential for exploitation, dismissed surrogates' capacity to bond with the fetuses they carry, emphasized that surrogacy arrangements are mutually beneficial, ignored structural inequalities, and depicted surrogates as conforming to strict gender roles...