當代醫院的多角化經營—以壢新醫院為例

樊可瑜　顧嘉穎　黃曉霜

Li Shin Hospital, the largest hospital in Chungli area, plays an important role in the medical circle. What do they do to attract so many patients? Why are they so successful? Their professional medical treatment and their advanced equipment are important reasons; however, the most important reason is, the hospital has learned to run itself as if it were managing a business. They provide what the people want, and even create patients’ desire to come to the hospital.

Commercialization (How to manage their business):

1. Franchising: Li Shin Hospital uses franchises to join forces with other smaller hospitals in other parts of Taiwan, and in this way, they can share the resources and information. Besides, they also form cooperation programs with other commercial organizations that are not in the medical field, e.g.7-11, Yu Shan Bank and ohayo network. These hospitals provide medical resources and these companies provide commercial sources, and so that the cooperation of these groups would make the franchising system stronger and make people who need information about these hospitals feel easier and more comfortable.

2. Advertising and packaging: They not only establish an image of professionalism, but also provide human services to the people and the commercial management in order to give the society the image of a hospital for the new century. They even have their own mascots, a blue bear, named Harry, and a pink bear named Sally, to convey a message of warmth. They chose the lily as a representation of their hospital, because most people often think of the nurses dressed in white as lilies.

3. Services: There are a lot of commercial services in Li Shin, such as a coffee shop, a bookstore, a pharmacy, a hairdressing saloon and a whole array of small restaurants. These provide the patients and their folks a lot of convenience, decreasing the inconvenience of having to go out of the hospital to buy the food and necessities. In addition to showing consideration for the patients’ stay in the hospital, the hospital also provides a gift shop and a florist shop for the people who come to visit the sick. Certainly, these shops have to pay the rent to the hospital, so the rent is another income for the hospital.

4. Promotions: Li Shin holds anniversary celebrations to appeal to the general population, be they sick or not. Besides, the shops in the hospital also offer discounts on special dates.

Customer Relations (How to maintain):

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the concept that an enterprise should design their strategies and services based on the demands of their customers. It’s more profitable for an enterprise to maintain an old customer than to attract a new one. However, as the demands of consumers are much higher than before, in order to make them stay and attract more new customers, Li Shin hospital puts much effort in this area. They not only phone a patient three days after he/she visits the emergency room to ask if he/she feels better, but also provide a wide range of services to satisfy non-patients.

Nowadays, citizens pay more attention to health care, to prevent diseases, and to maintain a healthy life than before. Due to this trend, Li Shin carried out many new plans to fit the consumers’ demands or even establish new departments that are specialized in these areas. For example, they have a dermatology department for people who have skin problems such as pimples, acnes, and so on. And there are specialists to provide personalized services to fit every demand of the customers.

Li Shin also broken down the boundaries of geographic areas. It provides free buses to bring patients, visitors or non-patients to Li-Shin. As it is the largest hospital in Chungli, people won’t mind to spending some more time to travel to Li-Shin instead of going to some smaller hospitals.

Image (How to attract patients):

The image of the hospital is also important, as Li-Shin is quite large in area and well equipped, people will feel more confident if they want to see a doctor. Moreover, the decoration of Li-Shin is shiny, healthy and hopeful. Instead of a being just a plain hospital, the interior design of Li-Shin will make you feel that you are in a hotel, a high-quality apartment building, or even a department store. The first thing you feel is the smell of delicious coffee; the first thing that attracts your eyes is the bright bookstore. It totally changed the basic and traditional concept you have about a hospital.

Not only the external factors are helping Li-Shin to build up a good image, it is also doing well in internal operations. You can easily find advertisements that tell you how well they are doing in new researches. It also holds many activities for the community. This surely can increase the good impressions of the hospital.

Li-Shin never forgot the essential customers of the hospital, i.e., the patients. There is a “Miss Congeniality Campaign” in every sickroom. In this way, it increases the competition among the nurses to do a better job, and the most important benefit is, it increases the interaction between the hospital and its patients, and the services are becoming better.