The identification of the weaknesses and opportunities that characterize Pacific Hospital’s operational environment will lead to an opportunity for the creation of strategic marketing initiatives. Given the size of the hospital and the dynamism of the environment, several members from different departments and cultures will be assembled to spearhead the marketing initiates of Pacific Hospital. The clash of cultures among the team members may make it difficult for them to work seamlessly (Bouncken, Brem, & Kraus, 2016). Nevertheless, several strategies can be adopted to ensure that harmony exists and that these team members focus on the singular objective of marketing the facility. The foremost strategy that will be used includes the acknowledgement of and respect for cultural differences. The marketing team leader will first of all need to acknowledge the existence of cultural variations among the team. By doing this, they will also acknowledge the necessary nature of navigating the differences so as to optimize the performance of the team (Bouncken, Brem, & Kraus, 2016). The first step will then pave way for the team leader to formulate norms for the marketing team. During this phase, everyone will need to contribute to the formation of the necessary goals. Such contributions ensure that everybody feels that they own them and as such, will abide by these norms. Further, the development of team identity as well as outlining their responsibilities and roles will follow. In this undertaking, the fundamental objective will be to discover commonalities among the team members and encouraging them to understand each other on a social level so as to allow for smooth working. Over-communicating and establishing rapport and trust will form the last phases of involving cross-cultural members in marketing initiatives.

Evaluating Marketing Strategies

            The marketing initiatives that will be employed to turn Pacific Hospital’s weaknesses into strengths and leverage the opportunities will not occur continuously without evaluation. Three months into the establishment of the marketing plan, the marketing team will convene to review the performance of the initiatives. During this period, several metrics will be taken into account and their performance (or lack of) examined. However, the assessment of the performance of the marketing initiatives needs to occur in an objective manner. In this regard, Pacific Hospital will identify the manner in which it wants to track the marketing initiatives. It could adopt the division of the channels that it wants to track into subgroups such as direct, referral, organic, email, paid, social, and none. As mentioned initially, certain communication channels would be adopted to disseminate information such as advertisement to external stakeholders. As such, the effectiveness of the marketing initiatives adopted will be evaluated based on how the company increased its patronage. In order to obtain this information, a survey or questionnaire forms will be given to new patrons. Moreover, the acquisition of data as relates to the improvement of customer satisfaction metrics will also reveal whether marketing initiatives were effective or otherwise. Moreover, getting data on patient retention will also be a pivotal indicator as to the success of the marketing initiatives (Hillestad & Berkowitz, 2018). Whereas acquiring new patrons is impressive, ensuring that they continue using Pacific Hospital’s services will prove an important metric when it comes to determining the success of the initiatives. Further, the customer service response time will also prove an important indicator as to whether the marketing plan was effective or otherwise.

Part 4: Community Collaboration Plan

Strategies for Collaboration

            The collaboration between communities and health care organizations produces manifold advantages, some of which help the former to achieve its strategic goals. The collaboration between communities and health care organizations is thus paramount to helping hospitals achieve some of their strategic goals (Berkowitz et al., 2016). Pacific Hospital seeks to improve its clinical performance to the benefit of the surrounding Inglewood communities. Thus, at the primary beneficiaries of these services, the hospital needs to find ways of collaborating with the community so as to realize some of the strategic plans that it has formulated. The most important method that Pacific Hospital needs to adopt in order to ensure that the community perspective on its services changes is through partnership. The collaboration between communities and Pacific Hospital through partnerships will reveal the gaps in the health care needs of the community. As a result, the hospital will formulate targeted strategies that will ensure that such gaps are bridged, which will enhance its delivery of services to the Inglewood population. Moreover, Pacific Hospital needs to discuss its strategic plan with the community interest groups. Given that such groups play a critical role in the day-to-day lives of the Inglewood population, they are at a better position to understand the areas of focus for the hospital (Weideman et al., 2016). Thus, when they share the information with the Pacific Hospital, the strategic objectives and goals can be tweaked to optimize the health of Inglewood communities. Moreover, whereas collaboration with the community can occur through partnerships and community organizations, the organization can also adopt the usage of public health promotion initiatives to improve the health care needs of Inglewood population. Executing such services will help the hospital to engage directly with the populace while using the opportunity to identify the areas that require addressing in the Inglewood area (Berkowitz et al., 2016). As such, Pacific Hospital will tweak its strategic objectives to ensure that such areas are addressed, which will have the double effects of ensuring that the strategic goals are accomplished. Moreover, Pacific Hospital can participate in broad-based dialogue with communities. During these meetings, certain conversations that are less frequently heard in board meetings will be revealed. These community meetings are chances to engage in educational activities and listening, learning as well as strengthening vital relations with the community. Moreover, doing a community needs assessment will also help in identifying transformative, collaborative, and efficient allocation of resources (Weideman et al., 2016). During such an assessment, the hospital needs to collect objective data from the community members and implement priority health goals as will be asserted by them. The community needs assessment offers an interactive and as well as collective platform, which ensure that multiple stakeholders including the community and the hospital to establish a premise and infrastructure to achieve more in unity.

Addressing Community Diversity Issues

            The collaboration between Pacific Hospital and the Inglewood community may present a multicultural challenge. Given the variations that may exist amongst the members in terms of ethnicities, traditions, languages, and history among others, the collaboration may face certain barriers if steps are not adopted to handle the matter. In an effective multicultural collaboration, the participants need to have a sense of a common goal (Treadwell, 2016). Multicultural collaborations need considerations that may be absent in other collaborations. One of the ways that this could be achieved entails formulating and clearly stating the vision and mission of the association, so as to influence the multicultural relationship. Moreover, modelling novel and multifarious communication models as well as special support will also prove consequential in positively affecting the collaborative relationship. Further, the creation of leadership opportunities for the minority groups will also positively impact the multicultural collaboration. Lastly, Pacific Hospital should participate in undertakings that fight oppression or that are culturally sensitive in order to illuminate the collaborating partners. By doing this, it becomes easier for the teams to work together.

Conclusion

Health care organizations provide a range of services to patients. The performance of health facilities as described in the case of Pacific Hospital depends on quality outcomes and capacity of the facility to manage a large patient population. However, health institutions should guarantee quality care to patients at relatively affordable prices to address the current rise of non-communicable diseases. To improve the image of the hospital and achieve its strategic goals, a communication plan that will be used to disseminate its marketing plan becomes effective. Even with this, Pacific Hospital needs to create a collaborative environment with the Inglewood community through obliteration of multicultural challenges.

References

Austin, E. W., & Pinkleton, B. E. (2015). Strategic public relations management: Planning and managing effective communication campaigns. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.