Communicable Disease Chain Infectious Agent Microbes – All Types Pathogenicity Invasiveness Virulence Infective Dose Resistance Means of Transmission Direct Indirect Portal of Re-entry Same as Exit Portal of Exit Respiratory Integumentary Blood GI Sexual Susceptible Host Defense Mechanisms Immunity Natural Artificial Reservoirs Humans Animals Plant/Soil © 2011. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved. 2 East Chester Regional Health System Marketing Plan 2 East Chester Regional Health System Marketing Plan 24 Marketing Plan Name Date InstructorMarketing Plan This marketing plan is for the merger that has occurred between East River Medical Centre, Archway Hospital, and Northern Mountain Hospital Consortium. The three hospitals that previously operated separately have now merged to create one East Chestnut Regional Health System that is set to target the three markets that were previously dominated by the three hospitals. By joining forces, the three hospitals stand to benefit from increased shareholding, economies of scale, and enhanced management capabilities that would propel them to greater heights (Haas & Vita, 2011).   The following marketing plan will explain in detail whom the target customers of the hospital are going to be as well as the possible means of reaching out to them. It will also include strategies and techniques that will be used to retain the employees and keep them from moving out of the hospital. From this marketing plan, it will be possible to tell how the various marketing mix will be employed to finally come up with a healthy mix that will reach many people.  1. The Big Picture The three different hospitals that have merged each had a diverse shareholding and approach of getting customers. East River Medical Centre has had its fair share of success due to its location and level of proficiency practiced at the hospital. In recent years, however, the hospital has experienced security issues, and the medical personnel has grown old; hence the hospital has been on the decline. As for Northern Mountain Hospital Consortium, it was formed as a consortium of small medical centers that wanted benefit from economies of scale and to also deal with the influx of patients from East River Medical Centre. The Archway Hospital, which is in the urban area of Chestnut, has also experienced considerable challenges with management relying heavily on Medicaid to perform. It is from these limitations that the three hospitals have decided to come together and create a joint hospital that will be able to contain the challenges faced.  East River Medical Center has a Level 1 Trauma Center with an Air Service. East River Medical center has about 300 people a day filling their hospital beds, which holds up to 550 beds total. Archway Hospital had many issues due to management strictly relying on Medicare/Medicaid. With all the repairs that are need.

1. Communicable Disease Chain
Infectious Agent
Microbes – All Types
Pathogenicity
Invasiveness
Virulence
Infective Dose
Resistance
Means of Transmission

2. Direct
Indirect
Portal of Re-entry
Same as Exit
Portal of Exit
Respiratory
Integumentary
Blood
GI

3. Sexual
Susceptible Host
Defense Mechanisms
Immunity
Natural
Artificial
Reservoirs
Humans
Animals
Plant/Soil

4. © 2011. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.
2
East Chester Regional Health System Marketing Plan 2
East Chester Regional Health System Marketing Plan 24
Marketing Plan Name
Date
InstructorMarketing Plan
This marketing plan is for the merger that has occurred between
East River Medical Centre, Archway Hospital, and Northern
Mountain Hospital Consortium. The three hospitals that
previously operated separately have now merged to create one
East Chestnut Regional Health System that is set to target the
three markets that were previously dominated by the three
hospitals. By joining forces, the three hospitals stand to benefit
from increased shareholding, economies of scale, and enhanced
management capabilities that would propel them to greater
heights (Haas & Vita, 2011).
The following marketing plan will explain in detail whom the
target customers of the hospital are going to be as well as the
possible means of reaching out to them. It will also include
strategies and techniques that will be used to retain the
employees and keep them from moving out of the hospital.
From this marketing plan, it will be possible to tell how the
various marketing mix will be employed to finally come up with
a healthy mix that will reach many people.
1. The Big Picture
The three different hospitals that have merged each had a
diverse shareholding and approach of getting customers. East

5. River Medical Centre has had its fair share of success due to its
location and level of proficiency practiced at the hospital. In
recent years, however, the hospital has experienced security
issues, and the medical personnel has grown old; hence the
hospital has been on the decline. As for Northern Mountain
Hospital Consortium, it was formed as a consortium of small
medical centers that wanted benefit from economies of scale
and to also deal with the influx of patients from East River
Medical Centre. The Archway Hospital, which is in the urban
area of Chestnut, has also experienced considerable challenges
with management relying heavily on Medicaid to perform. It is
from these limitations that the three hospitals have decided to
come together and create a joint hospital that will be able to
contain the challenges faced.
East River Medical Center has a Level 1 Trauma Center with an
Air Service. East River Medical center has about 300 people a
day filling their hospital beds, which holds up to 550 beds total.
Archway Hospital had many issues due to management strictly
relying on Medicare/Medicaid. With all the repairs that are
needed in this facility, no one is sure if the significant expense
is worth it.
2. Company Overview
Before the three hospitals merged, only two of the hospitals had
merged first. Those being the Archway Hospital and East River
Medical Centre. The synergy led the CEO of Archways rising to
the helm of the merger as president of the hospital. With the
new alliance, the CEO allowed the company to have a
decentralized leadership where each hospital would continue to
exercise its power on its own. The performance was not that bad
at first. However, as the CEO aged, the market share and
profitability of the company deteriorated immensely. The poor
performance created a leadership challenge. Hence, the
company had to fix this by getting another leader to guide the
company.
To make the company stronger, a series of new leadership was
employed to serve at various capacities. They hired a new Chief

6. Finance Officer, Chief Operating Officer, as well as a new
corporate counsel. All this is aimed at improving productivity
and hence increasing the market shareholding. As the people in
charge of the hospitals aged, the profits were going downhill.
There had to be a new strategy in which things would start to
improve.
3. Market Overview
It is no secret that some hospitals perform better in some areas
than others. The integration of hospitals that used to compete
previously leads to a synergy of both the bad and good elements
of hospitals (Harrison, 2011). Even if hospitals are happy with
their current patient volume, they are not guaranteed to keep it
up forever. That is why it is imperative to have a planned
marketing strategy, so patients will not switch their health care
providers (Healthcare Success, 2020). Our marketing team
needs to come up with a new plan for the regional health
system. The CEO wants to have new elements in the marketing
plan. He wants to use social media for communication between
patients and consultants. He needs a marketing strategy for new
physicians, a new retail strategy for the primary care network
and the Primary Care Medical Home, and a new advertisement
campaign for the new oncology center and ED/Trauma Services
of ECRH.
The integration has also shown why some hospitals were in the
current positions that they found themselves within. However,
the intermixing of facilities, physicians, and the leadership staff
should put them in a position to have their successes combined.
Certain services not being accessible could become a thing of
the past. The consolidation should improve productiveness,
passage to care, and, most importantly, quality of care.
Ultimately, is not the plan to have cost decrease and quality of
care heightened? In theory, the more care a hospital provides,
the more efficient and less expensive it should become.
According to what we know, we do find that some businesses

7. operate better in some areas than others. It seems that with the
integration of these hospitals, we have the good and the bad
making it better than what we had before. There have been
many additions added to make this transition bigger and better
for all. We have an orthopedic hospital, two ambulatory surgical
centers, and imaging centers with radiologists. There is
talk about a new medical center being built across the street,
which would include medical offices as well. That would be an
added plus to this community.
Let us look at it like this; we have a small hospital that is not
endowed with the latest equipage as a larger facility. This
smaller hospital is now submerged with the larger facility. The
smaller facility is now better equipped, and the patients of the
smaller hospital have just secured preferred access and leading-
edge medical technologies. Overall, this can be a win-win
setting. From this vantage point, a merger seems like an
indisputable course that will offer benefits to consumers of all
ages and financial backgrounds. The potential customers this
merger will bring is enormous. Goals/Objectives and Marketing
Strategy
Organizations that use customer and employee satisfaction
surveys will only help to better the organization's outcomes on
how customers and employees are treated. Patients are voicing
their opinions on the type of care they received with different
doctors and facilities. People that are looking for the best care
can choose where they want to go. This is an essential tool in
developing goals and marketing strategies that will enable
organizations to remain competitive in today's market. Health
care marketers, given their perspective, have a unique
opportunity to ensure their own institutions' success (Petrochuk,
M. A., & Javalgi, R., G.,1996)
Patients have the right to choose where they receive care, and
we want to make sure that ECHR is their first choice. The goals
or objectives and marketing strategy will consist of a list of
goals. This strategy will include staff and physician
recruitment, areas that need increased performance, and how to

8. market ECHR to the specific targeted audience.
1. Goal Focus
Our first goal is for ECRH to increase obstetrical delivery by
20% over the next three years. In the Faith & Main consultation
report, 72% of women in Chestnut County and 30% of women in
neighboring counties would consider using ECRH for their
health services. With that information, we have an opportunity
to meet the needs of these patients. ECRH will utilize Faith and
Main to assist in the marketing of the implementation of their
report regarding women's services.
Our second goal is to increase the emergency department
volume by 5% to get back to the previous level of utilization
within the next 18 months. We have seen a decrease in the ED
volume due to BMC acquiring an ambulance service in some of
the outlying communities, which has helped to increase their
patient value. ECRH should able to meet this goal with the
hospital having a Level 1 trauma center as opposed to BMC's
Level 2 trauma center. ECRH should be able to achieve the goal
once we begin to use lean management processes to correct
service issues found in the ED. ECRH will work on improving
ED visits by reviewing physician contracts to enhance physician
service performance. ECRH will investigate the fast track ED
concept and implement the freestanding ED strategy. Finally,
ECRH will re-establish relationships with regional emergency
medical services to raise the utilization of the medical air
service.
Our third goal is to increase the cardiology staff by 50% over
the next five years. Many of the cardiologists and staff will be
retiring in the next 3-5 years. Greenbranch Medical Center has
become a significant competitor in recruiting talented young
cardiologists. ECRH must start to aggressively recruit new
physicians to reduce the average age of the medical staff and
strategically enhance service line development. ECRH will
begin to develop a marketing strategy for new physicians being
recruited to the health system.

9. 2. Performance Benchmarks
Performance measurements are benchmarks by which clinicians
and health care organizations can determine their success in
delivering care (Hampton, T.,2006). Women’s health services
have deteriorated due to the Banford Medical Center having
more attractive services for women. ECRH must improve in
what we offer for women to include breast care and developing
a neonatal intensive care unit if ECRH is going to stay
competitive in this area. Women doctors also need to be
recruited as more women prefer a female doctor to take care of
their health care issues. Cardiology recruitment is a must to
maintain a strong performance in this area due to 50% of our
cardiologists will be retiring within the next 3 to 5 years. The
orthopedic department ECRH jointly operates with an
independent local orthopedic group is down 7% in volumes due
to internal problems with older surgeons versus young surgeons.
The department needs to work on improving performance and
phasing out the older physicians. Customer service needs to
grow in the Emergency department. All employees and
physicians will go through customer service training programs.
The services will be randomly audited to monitor customer
service and monitor improvements.
3. Market Objectives
When it comes to Marketing Objectives cost is not the only
thing to consider, although it is a big part of it. We also need to
look at the quality of service we are providing. When we
market, we need to catch the eye of the people looking for the
service we provide. People go on the internet to research
physicians, healthcare services, and hospital locations in their
area, or close to their jobs. Health care marketing is just like
any other business when it comes to marketing, and it's
changing every day and possibly every hour.
There are always new things happening in healthcare. The
organization must target its audience in many ways. The
organization should use social media, organizational web page,
emails, flyers, and paid advertisements to reach their audience.

10. Many people go to the internet right away to find out about
places they are looking for. Having a website on social media
can be beneficial, as people will check on services offered and
reviews to see the good and bad about your business.
Email is a great way to advertise, as well as sending out
reminder notices to patients about upcoming appointments or
lab results, or even if they need to fill out paperwork before
they come to your office. Many people look for keywords when
they start to search for your website. The organization will need
to have something in your marketing advertisement to catch
their eye and keep them interested. The marketing technique
needs to be attractive, colorful, and eye-catching, as well as
have videos about your facility along with educational videos
for the patients too.
4. Target Market
Target marketing is used to address the needs and wants of
customers. By adding more services for women, naturally we
would want to target pregnant women of all ages as well as
adolescents and young adults. Offering women’s services,
breast care, NICU, as well as women centered education will
help entice the female population to become customers. Since
we are aware that 72% of women in Chestnut County and 30%
of women in neighboring counties would consider using ECRH
for their health services, those areas should be our main focus.
Insurance plans of all types will be accepted and payment
arrangements for other services for those not insured will be
provided so that not a single woman is turned away from
receiving care at ECRH.
ECRH will target the Chestnut County, Walnut County,
Butternut County, and Maple County populations. They will
meet with the local fire rescue departments of each county and
review processes and work together to ensure quick acceptance
of patient and reduced number of divert hours to increase the
emergency department volume. Lastly, ECRH will target local
university medical schools and existing cardiologists to bolster
up their cardiology staffing.

11. Type of Companies
The vision of East Central Regional Hospital is to provide
competent and compassionate services to all patients. ECRH
offers a wide range of services such as inpatient services,
outpatient services, laboratory services, behavioral management
services, transitional care services, medication management,
and forensic services, to name a few. Companies such as
Animo, and HMC HealthWorks for behavioral health, Golden
Living and HCR ManorCare for nursing homes, PillPack
and Propeller Health for medication management, Serenity View
and Hazelden Betty Ford for inpatient treatments would benefit
from working with ECRH.
Collaborators
All managed health care facilities within the local communities
can and should work with ECRH. We should build relationships
with local private physician practices, nursing homes, clinics,
and fire rescue departments. Individuals that participate in
Medicaid programs can also benefit from the massive array of
services that ECRH provides. Medicaid has had a colossal
impact on the shape of public health care. Medicaid has too
matured into one of the most significant elements of the health
care protections for patient services.
Major Competitors
The ECRH campus is planted on over 300 acres and can provide
living areas, activity areas, administrative buildings, and
support structures. Smaller facilities and hospitals that are not
able to give a percentage of what ERCH can provide are
concerned. ECRH can be considered a one-stop-shop, from
services to amenities. From acute care, to transitional care to
rehabilitation to home care. The major competitor of ECRH is
the Banford Medical Center (BMC), which has 400 registered
beds with an 85% occupancy. It is a for profit organization that
just built a brand new facility on the wealthy edge of the
community.
Value Proposition.

12. It is crucial to provide services that rival the competitors'
services, so patients will always want to go to ECRH. To do so,
we need to bring all our goals to life: increase obstetrical
deliveries, emergency department, cardiology staff, and to
develop a neonatal care unit. It is very important to check what
services and products competitors provide and keep improving
work at ECRH. We need to gain the competitive advantage over
BMC by using innovation, offering top of the line services from
top of the line-experienced staff, with the best medical
equipment, and have all this accompanied by short wait times
with optimal patient outcomes.
ECRH: Tactic and Implementation
The world today is driven by technology. To be successful in
marketing and
implementing changes in ECRH, we must include an active and
interactive presence of websites
and referral programs. The employees, doctors, and partners
can use these websites and programs, along with integrated
marketing sources. Hiring more cardiology doctors will require
more than just visits to colleges and teaching hospitals. The
ECRH website will help create first impressions to attract
cardiologists to come and work for ECRH. Employee
engagement will need to be kept high throughout the upcoming
product, and service changes and communication will need to
remain clear and concise.
1. Product and Service Changes
ECRH will offer the services initially provided in the new site,
including cardiology services with a new cardiac rehabilitation
center. There will also be the addition of the oncology center
for the patients with a terminal illness. The latest oncology
department shall be opened and operational in about six months.
A new emergency medical service will also be available for
emergency air services. ECRH will enhance women's health,
obstetrical, and gynecological services. ECRH will do this with
additional diagnostic breast imaging alongside mammograms,

13. breast cancer programs along with awareness, and breast cancer
imaging. They will also improve healthcare services and
facilities, which are currently in place that would enhance the
financial revenue for the facility and improve the care quality to
patients. Lastly, ECRH will introduce cardiac rehabilitation
services to the local community. This will require a fifty
percent increase in the number of the cardiologist that ERCH
currently employs.
1. Brand Image Improvement Actions
The brand image will be boosted by promoting a new logo along
with new services that the organization is offering. This will be
done through local marketing via the organizational web page,
social medial, and paid local television and radio advertisement.
This will also be marketed within the organization and its
private practices. New signage in physician practice reception
areas and exam rooms will be utilized. ECRH will engage in
referral services alongside offering same-day scheduling and
treatment, as these would surge the facility branding.
1. Pricing Changes
A surge in prices will accompany the growth of ECRH. This is
because ECRH shall be aiming at keeping its costs of services at
a reasonable level. The fees shall be set to either meet what
rival firms are charging. The pricing shall be anchored on what
ECRH is paying for its services needed to assist with the
organization. The inpatient payer mixes that ECRH has 55
percent Medicare, 15% Medicaid, and 30% commercial. The
ECRH has a goal of fixing this deteriorated inpatient pay mix.
1. Incentives to Patients and Doctors
ECRH will provide incentives to appeal to new patients. The
new incentives will include discounts on treatment and extra
care services like free therapies and exercises. The pros are that
there will increases patients and hence increased in market
share. The cons will be reduced revenue in the short run due to
low prices through discounts (Erickson, 2020). ECRH will also
offer incentives to attract doctors, especially cardiologists. This

14. will be through pay hikes and extra leaves for the doctors. This
will ensure it attracts competent and qualified doctors hence
quality services. The cons are that the pay hike will increase
costs in terms of wages and salaries. Your marketing strategy
plays an essential part in how you get new doctors. Also, your
location is an important part too. By offering a referral
program, monetary bonuses, time off/sabbatical, better life
insurance program, Etcetera. While you might be getting a new
doctor to your facility, you could also be gaining new patients.
That would be a plus to your facility as well. A rewards
program offered would be nice.
A reward program in which every fifth visit would be free for
the patient would be implemented. Or if they stayed with the
doctor and a follow up was needed, the follow up would be at
half the price. Physicians would be available 24/7, instead of
having to wait two weeks for an appointment. Offer a pay-off
program in which they can pay for services that are rendered
today at a later date. Many people cannot afford the bill the day
they are seen, so possibly an installment plan would help them.
Have them answer a survey as to how they think this program
should go. Advertise on social media, send emails out, or in a
magazine to draw their attention to your office. List hours of
operation, location, have a video of what you have to offer in
your office compared to other offices. Etcetera.
1. Communication Method Changes
ECRH aims at making the work surroundings a favorable
destination for employment to avoid the terrible effects the
merger might have on employee incentives. Therefore, ECRH
will strive to give their workers the best incentives through
communicating with their workers to demonstrate how the
incentives shall be beneficial in the future. Communication
helps transfer information and meaning between receivers and
senders using written, visual, oral, and social media (Sadia,
Salleh, Kadir, & Sanif, 2016). ECRH will use communication to
let all its employees know what is going on with the business
world or private atmosphere. Sharing information with

15. employees and offering kind words to them will make them feel
that they are 100 percent engaged in the process.
The communication will be through advertising for the new
oncology and women's health centers. This communication will
include the use of a grand opening celebration, meet and greets
for the public, tours, applications on smartphones, and
informational sessions. This form of communication will ensure
cross-selling opportunities to effectively share work, which is
offered by the primary care and women's service lines. Social
media will be used to boost awareness of the new oncology and
women's health centers. This strategy will be utilized because
many of ECRH potential patients and relatives are currently
engaged in social media sites. This will help cover a broad
target audience fast and at low costs (Stanimirovic & Vintar,
2015). Patients will also get more communication with medical
staff during their visits or treatments.
Implementation
1. Business infrastructure
ECRH will renovate the old buildings and modernize every
facility via the addition of interactive technologies alongside
high-tech medicinal instrumentations along with equipment.
ECRH will further build new facilities for the new oncology
department and the women's health center. The organizational
changes will have a new oncology department that will be
reporting to the top management.
1. The business process
The pay hikes incentives offered to doctors will put more strain
on the finances in terms of high salary rates. This is because
more money will be used to sustain the salary payment. Also,
offering low prices on treatment for new customers will reduce
revenue and hence small profits in the short run, but will be
profitable through the attraction of many clients in the long
term. Incentives doctors have two main goals: 1) to motivate an
employee to perform or continue to perform better and 2) to
have a long-lasting effect on their performance. Although
incentives are significant, recognition is even more important

16. for professionals. High performing employees expect to be
recognized, but do not necessarily expect to be rewarded.
Sometimes a small token of appreciation may go a long way
towards motivating dedicated employees. Recognizing
employees will improve retention and have a significant and
positive impact on attracting new staff.
1. Schedule
The new oncology department and women's health center will
be opened and operated in about six months. The renovation of
the old buildings will take a maximum of one year. Hiring new
physicians will begin immediately, and with the number of
cardiologists needed, it will take longer than a year as we wait
for doctors to complete their fellowships and relocate to the
area if they are not local, so about two years to have the number
of cardiologists needed. Credentialing services take about two
months. This adds time to the onboarding process as well as
getting new physicians registered with the different insurance
plans to be in-network and be reimbursed for services provided.
Control and Exhibits
Moving forward with the marketing plan, we need to make sure
we can have adequate goal progress tracking, performance gap
management, and environmental analysis. The goal is to make
sure our plan is creating the desired results. Human beings use
social connections to identify the people that they feel safe
working with (Band, Z., 2020). Speaking with customers and
making sure that we are attracting our target market through
social media would be the best way to track the progress of our
marketing goals. The performance gap management will allow
us to make sure we are improving in areas where we are
lacking, and communication is already a known issue. There
will always be threats to the environment that can affect our
marketing success, such as competition, population, etcetera.
Control
0. Adequate Goal Progress

17. We will track progress and attract more of our target market
through the use of a variety of mediums and tools such as cost-
effective mobile video messaging platforms like Instagram and
moLotus. Moreover, we will start 30 conversations per month
through the call center and speak with customers, getting to
know their pain points, and answering any questions they may
have. These innovative mediums will allow us to receive and
send information, thus helping to attract more patients. The use
of these tools will significantly enable us to attract an
additional 500 patients by the end of the year 2020.
0. Performance Gap Management
I think our organization’s management is currently suffering
from a communication gap due to a lack of empathy or
unwillingness to understand the perspective of employees and
customers. The management personnel get so stuck in their own
beliefs and stand on things that they stop listening to any other
point-of-view. Even when they do listen, the lens they are
filtering things through distorts any new information. The whole
top marketing management climate around the organization is a
perfect example. This inability to understand the other side is
creating a broader communication that, at times, seems
insurmountable.
Nonetheless, to correct this and ensure our marketing plan
achieves the most desirable results, we need to find a better way
to communicate the information to the staff and the local
community. The top management will also need to share
relevant information that is of some use for employees on a
timely basis by defining the action that employees need to take
for resolving the issue. One strategy for this communication
should include public town hall meetings that are open to
everyone. They are for the staff and the local community
members. The public town hall meetings should be presented by
the CEO of the organization to ensure his or her message is
delivered directly to the people. The town hall meetings help
the organization and the leader to connect with the staff and the
local community (Lake, 2017).

18. 1. Environmental Analysis
Since most products/services appeal more to some
demographics than others, trends that indicate changes in
number or type of people affect marketing. The trends, such as a
growing population, have shown new and growing markets are
needed in the community (Tumolo, 2018), such as the women's
health, emergency services, and oncology services.
Women's health service is one of ECRH most significant
opportunities. Banford Medical Center initially posed a threat to
ECRH, causing a decrease in patients seeking women's health-
related services. However, the Faith & Main market study
analysis showed that 36% of women in the service area would
travel across county lines to receive excellent women's health
services. 72% of women in Chestnut County would consider
using the women's services of East Chestnut Regional Medical
Center. This level of interest present ECRH with an opportunity
to gain more women as patients.
The 100-acre development site is located near a significant
commerce area in the community. It is conveniently located
near densely populated neighborhoods and shopping. ECRH
proceeds with the plan of building a new facility with physician
offices and the free-standing emergency center, there is an
excellent opportunity for increasing ECRH visibility in the
community and bringing in more patients.
Nonetheless, the threats to ECRH's success include a
competitive local environment with another local for-profit
healthcare organization and an academic medical center. With
an aging cardiologist population, ECRH faces a threat from
neighboring Greenbranch Medical Center. Cardiology services
have been gaining strength within the Greenbranch Medical
Center, mainly since they brought in a renowned cardiologist to
rebuild their program.
Exhibits
0. Market Data
The table below shows a patient demographic that is most likely
to find our products/services attractive, needed, and useful. This

19. is based on the fact that they fulfill specific wants and needs,
and solve specific problems that they have, are going to be our
target market.
Demographic
Age Bracket
Children's
0-12 years
Teenagers
13-17 years
Students
18-24 years
Youth
25-34 years
Maturity
35-65 years
Elderly age
65+ years
0. Value …