Differences in perceptions of hospital marketing orientation between administrators and marketing officers

Hospital administrators have been struggling for more than a decade to determine the role and proper position for marketing and marketers within their organizations. Results of a study now confirm the expected--administrators and their chief marketing officers do not see the same marketing actions being conducted for their hospitals. The consequence of such perceptual differences in marketing orientation for the role of marketers within the hospital are significant and are discussed in this article. Of particular importance is the finding that the marketing behaviors of the organization as identified by line managers correlate strongly with both revenues (r = .6r for inpatient revenue) and occupancy levels (r = .44). Additionally, it was found that as little as a 10 percent improvement in a hospital's marketing orientation is associated with a $25 million increase in total net patient revenues and an 8 percentage point increase in occupancy rate.