Reputation is a very powerful consumer driver with a majority (60 percent) of consumers reporting reputation is "very important" when considering a hospital for future needs. A new whitepaper from the National Research Corporation outlines the key connections between hospital reputation and service line preference.
The information contained in the whitepaper is from a Market Insights survey that gathered responses from 270,000 individuals concerning ten service lines and 13 hospital reputation factors.
Here are three findings on reputation and service line preference:
1. Overall quality is universally important. Out of the 13 reputation factors examined, overall quality was ranked highly among all of the service lines. It was the most important reputation factor for 50 percent of the service lines. Overall quality was most important when considering which hospital to go to for inpatient care, with a vast majority (71 percent) of consumers ranking it as the most important factor.
2. Importance of technology varies by service. The ranking of reputation factors changes when services lines are compared. For heart care and cancer care, technology was deemed the most important reputation factor. The majority (60 percent) of survey respondents listed technology as the most important reputation factor in determining where to go for heart care, and 56 percent listed technology as most important for cancer care.
3. Having the best physicians is a significant factor. Throughout all services lines, having the best physicians was a highly ranked reputation factor. Having the best physicians was most important for consumers when determining where to go for Maternity/OB services, with 57 percent of consumers ranking it as the most important factor.
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