Technology-Based Marketing in the Healthcare Industry: Implications for Relationships Between Players in the Industry

Abstract

In this chapter, we focus on the impact of Web-based technology on marketing practices within the healthcare industry and its impact on the relationships between the major players in the industry. In particular, we focus on the relationship between the patient and his/her physician. The first part of the chapter examines the dynamics of this relationship in the context of exchanges and interactions that patients and physicians have with the pharmaceutical and insurance companies, i.e., players outside the clinic/hospital setting. We present a simple conceptual model that shows how relationships in the industry have evolved as a result of technologically driven marketing practices. In the second part of the chapter, we examine how Web technology affects the way in which players and processes inside the clinic/hospital setting influence the patient-physician relationship. Specifically, we explore how Web technology streamlines administration within a clinic/hospital, increases patient education about their illness, enhances communication between patients and physicians and leads to an overall improvement in the quality of patient care. We balance our discussion of the virtues of Web technology by briefly discussing thorny legal and public policy issues that have been raised by the use of this technology in the healthcare industry.