Consumerism in Health Care
by Diane M. Eade and Sharon M. Mikolanis
Articles
Continued
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WHAT DO CONSUMERS EXPECT AND NEED?
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| The first challenge in determining the success of health systems in meeting or exceeding consumer expectations is to gain clarity on the specifics of consumer expectations. This is quite different from evaluating customer satisfaction after the product and service have been delivered. It means bringing consumers into the process at every step of development and engaging them for their ideas, concerns and opinions. This can be quite challenging, because consumer expectations and priorities may vary drastically, based largely on the complexity of the specific health care issue. Traditionally, providers have assumed that health care decisions are made by medical discipline, such as cardiology, dermatology, neurology, psychiatry, etc. This category organization is based on education, training and delivery of services, and evolved from the perspective of professionals inside the health care industry. For all its obvious appropriateness, it fails to consider another level of the consumer's decision-making criteria. In consumer marketing, it would be regarded as industry definition based on product features rather than consumer benefits. |
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To lay the groundwork for a new look at a consumer-based orientation in healthcare, let's quickly review Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, presented below. |
Maslow's theory contends that human behavior is motivated, to a large extent, by a system of needs. While all needs are present at all times, each of us tries to satisfy the needs lower in the hierarchy / pyramid before focusing our attention of the needs that are higher up in the hierarchy. The needs described in Maslow's hierarchy, in ascending order are:
1. Physiologic Needs of Survival and Stimulation
2. Safety and Security NeedsFood, air, water temperature, elimination, rest, pain avoidance, sex activity, exploration, manipulation, novelty
3. Needs for Love and BelongingSafety, security, protection
4. Needs for EsteemLove, belonging, closeness, intimacy
5. Needs for Self-ActualizationValue and respect from others, value and respect of self
6. Cognitive NeedsThe process of making the most of your own talents and abilities
7. Aesthetic NeedsSeeking knowledge, discovering things, working with ideas, knowing and understanding
The desire for beauty
Thus, we have come to take it for granted that people who are hungry have little concern or respect for the beauty of a painting. They will happily swap the painting for food.
The following examples suggest a new look at how the health care industry is organized with respect to consumer decision-making on provider selection and resulting satisfaction. They create a parallel to Maslow's hierarchy based on the complexity of the specific health issue at hand. We hypothesize that potentially life-threatening illnesses cause consumers to dramatically rethink their priorities and expectations versus more routine health issues. If we take the categories raised in both satisfaction and dissatisfaction studies, as well as some terms that will be presented in the following section and overlay them with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, they would look like this:
