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| Competition for Cataract Services - Illusion or Reality? | |
| R.Priya & S.Saravanan, Faculty Members, LAICO. | |
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Introduction:
As an example, to justify our point, we have taken up Madurai district as a case. There are more than 10,93,702 people in urban areas of Madurai district. It is estimated that 1,36,257 cataract blind eyes are due to be operated in Madurai District. The annual incidence of cataract blind are about 22,410 (20% of prevalence) which is added to the already existing cataract backlog in Madurai District. Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, a renowned eye care centre performs the highest volume of cataract surgeries in the world performing about one lakh cataract surgeriesby this year end and is in this district.
Yearly, it shows that Aravind Eye Hospital (Table 1), a major eyecare centre with a capacity of 950 beds performs a yearly average of 9000 cataract surgeries in Madurai District, which indicates that it's performance clears only 30% of the incident cases whereas the backlog still remains untouched. If government performance is also taken into account, then also there is no significant impact. It shows, if a major Eye Care Centre itself can perform only 30% of the work for it's native district, then the situation is no better elsewhere and in the country. Further, it gives one an idea as to the untapped market potential for providing cataract services. Discussion Each hospital has to frame strategies that will address the barriers and needs of the customer. But most of our marketing strategies are set around others or to compete with other hospitals. They may publicise false news about other hospital or comment about the quality of other services. Philip Kotler, the marketing Guru says " a hospital needs to use minimal marketing or no marketing because for hospitals there are adequate number of patients for their beds in the light of growing population." The eye hospitals need not spend much money on advertising and other marketing strategies as it needs minimal or no marketing, as there is huge cataract backlog yet to obeoperated. The hospitals rather than investing money on sophisticated marketing strategies must concentrate on devising means to understand and analyse the following factors: Socio economic profile of patients: The real competition for all hospitals is fighting people's ignorance, addressing barriers to eye care and creating awareness among the people about the eye care facilities available. Each hospital has a crucial role in educating the patients by creating awareness about cataract surgery. There is a need to convince people that cataract need to be operated in order to enable them to see the world. There are millions of people who are needlessly blind and the greatest challenge for any eye hospital is to create awareness and convince them to accept surgery. Poverty is another reason that prevents them from accessing the near by eye care facilities. The eye hospitals in a region should try their best to eliminate the barriers and provide free services to those who cannot afford. Seasonal Fluctutation: Many eye care providers face fluctuations in demand during specific seasons. Some providers also have a mental block that it is not safe to operate in summer/winter while others feel that there will be no patients in this' season. Apart from these, there are also superstitions and beliefs that prevent people from availing the eyecare services during specific seasons. The providers can package their cataract services in an attractive way like offering discounts or reducing the price of the cataract surgery during the slack period. The facilities in the hospitals should also be convenient and comfortable for the patients. The providers should ensure that there is water, power and other basic facilities available for the patient during his admission. Lack of Coordination in organising Outreach programmes: Many of the hospitals are engaged in outreach activity. Some hospitals organise screening camps wherein they screen the cataract patients and surgery is performed at the base hospital whereas others organise surgery camps. There is a possibility that two or three eye hospitals in the same region might organise camps in same village on the same day/week. Each might blame the other and compete with one another for the same patients. Many of patients in the village might also be confused not knowing which camp they should attend. In such situations, if all the hospitals in the specific region join hands, have a clear understanding when they are scheduling their camps and if it conununicated to all of them, then it will be beneficial to both the patients and the institutions. A time table for a year or six months could be made in advance by all the hospitals during the meeting so that it helps the public also to attend the camps they wish to. There should be better coordination among hospitals in the region through improved communication. Incentive Systems: There are some eye hospitals which give incentives to the camp organisers based on the number cataract cases brought. These organisers are driven by targets set to achieve in terms of cataract cases and lured by the incentive money, so they work quite agressively and might engage in negative publicity of other institutions in the area in order to reach their targets. The eyecare providers should not encourage such incentive systems, as on the long run, it will not reap much benefits to the organisation. The eyecare providers must emphasise about the service extended to the community rather than stressing on targets. In reality, considering the geographic area and population considering prevalence & incidence statistics of blindness, there is a greater demand for eye care services than the perceived ones. Modern Technology: Many of the providers of eyecare still believe that they have to' wait till the cataract is fully mature, so turn away many cataract patients whose lens is not fully mature. The doctors advise the patients to visit their clinics after 3 months or 6 months and the patients might not find the time convenient for him or might have other reasons, ultimately he will not turn to the hospital. With the advent of Intraocular implantations and other latest technologies in eyecare field, the providers are in a position to operate the cataracts at a much earlier stage. Conclusion: All the eye hospitals need to join hands to work together in a concerted fashion to clear the large backlog of cataract in a region as shown in figure 2 in contrast to figure 1. All eye hospitals in the region should find out the barriers of patients not availing the hospital services and have to devise means to overcome these barriers. Considering the market potential for cataract surgery, there is no real competition in terms of generating demand, eye hospitals must gear up to improve their productivity through efficient management of their manpower to meet the challenge of cataract backlog. Each eye hospital has a huge market of cataract blind, so these hospitals have to devise better means to clear the cataract' backlog. The eye hospitals have to explore new ways to tap the untapped potential market rather than blaming others for low demand for their services. The best marketing strategy for any eye hospital is to provide good quality cataract surgery, ensure maximum patient satisfaction and community goodwill. References:
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