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It's no longer just about healing: patients want a personal transformation.
What business are you really in? Do you provide health care services? What, then, do you charge for? How do you get paid? Who's the real customer? What is the role of patients in their own care? Your answers to these questions will determine the viability of your health care facility as a business and as a force for good in your community. The old ways have passed away; you must embrace a new economic reality to be successful and to deserve the trust of those in your care. In short, you must reach past the medical goods and health care services you currently provide and start staging engaging health experiences for your patients.
Beyond Goods and Services
Experiences are a distinct economic offering, as distinct from services as services are from goods, but one that-- until now-went largely unrecognized. When someone buys a good, he receives a tangible thing; when he buys a service, he purchases a set of intangible activities carried out on his behalf. But when he buys an experience, he pays for a memorable event that a company stages to engage him in an inherently personal way.
Companies in industry after industry recognize the need to stage experiences for their guests. The Hard Rock Cafe, for example, which opened in London in 1971, merged rock music with food service to create a unique dining experience-one successful to this day. Seattle-based REI has erected 65-foot climbing walls inside many of its latest establishments and charges guests $5 to climb them. Some stores have cross-- country ski or bicycle trails, walking paths with different surfaces for testing shoes, rain rooms, and, in Denver, a kayaking experience.
One of our favorite examples is a pediatric dentist outside of Phoenix, Dr. John Culp. He's known as The Jungle Doctor, as he created a jungle motif for his office. His business results have skyrocketed. The word of mouth is fantastic, kids don't cancel their appointments anymore, and they actually leave with smiles on their faces!
The forces of commoditization grow stronger every day, especially as the government puts more and more pressure on cost containment, HMOs practice greater control over clinical pathways, and consumers...