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Business plan – Market and Strategic analysis

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Market analysis

VMMC is committed to ensuring its patients get the best experience by engaging

qualified physicians and community providers. Thus, in line with the above objective, the

strategic marketing initiative seeks to fasten online patient services' delivery and awareness

creation to help patients realize maximum online experience. Key players in the healthcare center

have advocated re-energizing the online customer experience through telemedicine or telehealth

services. Dr. Kaplan, the MD, CEO, and Chairman of VMMC, suggests that the industry had

changed since 2020 when the covid-19 pandemic struck, and telemedicine is being adopted

across the industry (American Medical Association, n.d.). VMMC has sought to bring a lasting

change in the exponential growth of telemedicine with a focus on primary care, specialty care,

and procedural and surgical care. Such underpins the need to adopt a strategic marketing

initiative to enhance the online patient experience.

VMMC's close competitors, such as Peace Health, have been pushing for the adoption of

virtual care, where they advocate for their patients to seek medical care from the comfort of their

homes rather than physically going to the medical facility. Peace Health virtual medical care has

gained ground over the past few years with many patients, especially during the pandemic

seeking service through the healthcare center's website. The website has a good customer

interface; hence easy to navigate through. Such competition necessitates marketing the online

medical service care to ensure VMMC's patients stick with it rather than go to its competitors'

websites, such as Peace Health.

Strategy
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The proposed strategic initiative to be adopted by Virginia Mason Medical Center is the

marketing strategy that seeks to maximize patients’ online experience. In the modern healthcare

environment, a responsive website that adjusts to different devices and is consistently

impressive, as well as offers such an intuitive novel impression is required to successfully market

any business, especially a healthcare center. Therefore, online patients have to feel the

experience so that they don’t go to other websites to seek medical services. Such a website

should be easier to navigate and understand to ensure maximum patient experience and

satisfaction.

The proposed changes stipulated in the above strategy include devotion of adequate time

to developing a catchy and impressive search engine optimization (SEO). Other proposed

changes include writing and using pictures that resonate with the patients on the website as well

as representing the targeted patients for online patient services. Using catchy and trendy, but

reasonable phrases to pass the message across is also another change the strategy is proposing.

The proposed marketing strategic initiative poses some strengths like it will make the

website interface more user-friendly, hence maximizing the online customer experience. Another

strength it poses is that the message being passed across will resonate well with the targeted

clients, as well as enhance our strong brand in the healthcare industry in Virginia (Writer, 2018).

Weaknesses of the strategy include time and resources dedicated to the initiative. Since the

organization mainly deals with physical services, an online patient experience will experience

improper and irregular attention from the doctors and physicians.

The marketing strategic initiative also presents some opportunities to the healthcare

facilities as it will enable them to diversify their patient outreach and handling as part of patients’

experience will shift online. Such will help the company develop and enhance its brand among
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its peers as well as offer it an increase in revenue (Berry, 2018). The initiative faces threats like a

lack of awareness from patients on the online patient experience. The initiative faces financial

challenges that may hinder its full realization. Technological discrepancies like hacking of

patients’ information and compromising the website are some of the threats faced by the

initiative.

The data used to prepare the budget was considered from the healthcare center’s financial

statement like the income statement that highlights the revenue and expenses. The expenses

directed toward marketing show the amount the center spends on its publicity and promotion

(Robert et al., 2021). The factor that informed the income statement considers that it provides an

overview of what the company spends on a given item captured in the expense section. It also

highlights how the center against its revenue can meet its financial obligations.

Item Quantit Price per Total (in

y quantity (in dollars)
dollars) yearly

Salaries and benefits:

IT Specialist 1 100,000 100,000

Marketing Consultant 1 150,000 150,000

Web designers. 1 100,000 100,000

SEO engineer 1 90,000 90,000

Space Free

Equipment:

Laptops 2 900 1,800

Tablet 1 700 700

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Education and Training 20,000 20,000

Online marketing 60,000 60,000

through social media

Total 522,500

Implementation Schedule

Every organization, irrespective of its size or industry, must develop a timeframe

necessary to complete the strategic initiative (s) it seeks to undertake. A timescale is crucial in

implementing the initiative as it offers the organization the appropriate steps required in phases

to complete the project and ensure the initiative's success. Therefore, the implementation

schedule should be well stated for the successful completion of the initiative and to propel the

organization to success (Kossek et al., 2020). Virginia Mason Medical Center's marketing

strategic initiative's implementation schedule will include the necessary steps, competencies, and

requirements to complete the initiative. It will also highlight how the action plan aligns with the

organization's strategic initiative.

Timeframe

Below is the implementation schedule for the marketing initiative:

Day 0 – 10

 Meeting between the committee in charge of the strategic initiative and critical

stakeholders to outline the goal of implementing the online patient experience project.
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 Appointing individuals from marketing, IT, and medical departments, as well as senior

management, to offer oversight for the project.

 Prepare a conclusive budget for the undertaking.

 Identify resources required to facilitate the implementation of the project.

 Categorize the initiative's goals and assign their timelines.

 Determine the expected time the project will undertake.

Day 11 – 55

 Make an official announcement of the initiative at the VMMC to bring every employee at

the facility on board.

 Formulate the best marketing strategies for the initiative.

 Review the financial capacity of the facility to ensure it can finance the project.

Financing can come through grants, bank loans, donations, or bonds offered to VMMC.

 Analyzing the resources and competencies to evaluate the performance capacity of online

healthcare providers at VMMC by comparing the reviews and traffic to the online

healthcare provision page on the VMMC website.

 Identify discrepancies and limitations arising from the online service provision and

marketing strategies, then forward the same to the oversight committee for review and

advice.

 Create and apply an action scheme to remedy performance cracks and return feedback to

the oversight committee.

 Acquiring relevant resources such as staff, equipment, consultants, and funding to

facilitate the implementation and success of the project.

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After 55 days, the facility will have identified and remedied any weaknesses in the

project implementation. By this time, all the relevant staff will have been trained to understand

how the project will work and their roles in its success. The experts and consultants contracted

by VMMC will have introduced its employees to how best to push and ensure the initiative

succeeds.

Day 56 – 85

 Initiative rolls out across the facility.

 Analyze initial data of patients seeking healthcare services online, the reviews, and

feedback.

 Evaluate the initial initiative investment return based on the set project undertakings

and the VMMC's goals, vision, and mission.

 Meet with the nurses and physicians offering online patient services, the marketing

department pushing for the awareness of this initiative, and other staff to determine

how they view the project's performance and how it has improved the flow of online

consultations and patient experience as well as reduce the number physical visitations

for minor problems.

 Analyze and make proper adjustments to the project based on data collected from

various facility stakeholders to improve the project.

Day 86 – 210

 Continue assessing the initiative performance.

 Continue with periodic meetings with the marketing team and medical department

to analyze the progress of online patient service.

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 Prepare final modifications to ensure effective integration of the online healthcare

service across the facility's healthcare system.

The proposed marketing of online healthcare services will expand service delivery to

VMMC's patients and enhance its revenue. Such will boost the center and improve its impact on

the community. The critical competencies required to ensure the project's success, especially for

the medical staff, are patience and professionalism, which will help them provide good services

to the patients. The marketing and IT members of the project will need key competencies such as

persistence, patience, critical thinking, and creativity to help them generate catchy and effective

slogans in marketing online healthcare services.

The marketing of online healthcare services needs to align with VMMC's strategic

initiative of offering the best service experience (the Virginia Mason experience) to become

innovative and improve the online patient experience while also improving its revenue. The

initiative will also increase the flow of patients on the online platform, thus enhancing its

purpose of reaching out to as many patients as possible.

Strategic evaluation

During the adoption of a project, it is crucial for project implementors or managers to

assess its status, measure results, and monitor any milestones to ensure it remains within the

stipulated spectrum. Such will help the VMMC team undertaking the marketing strategic

initiative complete the project within the stipulated timeframe, and budget and ensure profit

maximization is achieved. To achieve successful initiative implementation monitoring, the team

will use tools such as the critical path method (CPM) which allows project managers to evaluate

the progress of the initiative in actual time (ENLAPS, n.d.). The tool can help the team predict if
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the initiative’s implementation is running late or if it will be completed within the stated

timeframe. Another tool is using the Gantt chart that breaks down the project into smaller tasks

and ensures they remain organized to achieve proper collaboration and delivery. Each task under

the schedule is assigned a chart with details regarding start time to finish time. Another tool will

be the Project evaluation and review technique (PERT) which helps in task division, time

allocation, and the setting of deliverable dates (ENLAPS, n.d.). All these tools are critical in

ensuring the successful implementation of the initiative.

On-going strategic evaluation and the willingness and capability to adjust the strategy is

crucial is ensuring the successful implementation of the initiative as it provides a platform for

realizing gaps within the project hence administering real-time solutions. These solutions will

ensure the project does not get off the rail, and thus adjustments can be made in between the

initiative prior to its full adoption (Miller, 2020). Such will propel VMMC into successfully

implementing the initiative.

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References

Berry, T. (2018, October 4). What is a SWOT analysis? Bplans Blog.

https://articles.bplans.com/how-to-perform-swot-analysis/

Kossek, E. E., Rosokha, L. M., & Leana, C. (2020). Work schedule patching in health care:

Exploring implementation approaches. Work and Occupations, 47(2), 228-261.

Miller, K. (2020, February 25). A Manager’s Guide to Successful Strategy Implementation | HBS
Online. Business Insights - Blog. https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/strategy-

implementation-for-managers

Roberts, A. S., Ken Schwencke, Mike Tigas, Sisi Wei, Alec Glassford, Brandon. (2021, May 9).

Virginia Mason Medical Center - Nonprofit Explorer. ProPublica.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/910565539

What are the tools for monitoring a project? (n.d.). Enlaps.io. https://enlaps.io/us/guide/project-

monitoring-tool.html

Writer, S. (2018, December 19). What is SWOT analysis? A strategic tool for achieving

objectives. Www.cio.com. https://www.cio.com/article/219603/swot-analysis-

defined.html