Managing the Healthcare Product

Abstract

Despite the importance and success of marketing in various sectors of the economy, healthcare marketing has not been considered as a core business strategy. Particularly in Africa, health practitioners, due to the professional nature of their occupation, believe that non-medical practitioners may not understand its administration and basic applications in order to craft a good marketing strategy. However, with the growth of the health sector in other parts of the world and the role it plays in the wellbeing and economic development of the people and the nation, in addition to innovations in healthcare service delivery, marketing is fast becoming a strong concept of practice in the healthcare sector. This chapter evaluates marketing issues relating to healthcare products, customers and the latest healthcare innovations and design, among other things. Through healthcare product marketing, a robust customer–seller relationship can successfully be developed. The healthcare customer, in the chapter, has been defined to include patients, doctors and clinical officers, as well as the payer (patient, parents, friends, institutions, government and private insurance companies). This chapter also considers recent developments in health technologies in the world such as telemedicine, m-health, and smart technologies which can usher in a new dawn in Africa by closing the physical geographical distance affecting provision of healthcare, thereby easing the quest for health for all. This, is the aim of marketing the healthcare product.