Specialty Care Marketing Meets Consumerism at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center

// By Jane Weber Brubaker //

Give me a good experience, gain my trust, and you’ll earn my loyalty. That’s consumerism, the bargain consumers strike with any company they do business with, whether they’re shopping for products or services — including healthcare services.

Heidi Schulte, vice president of strategy, hospital solutions, Doximity

“Healthcare consumerism is looking at everything through the lens of the patient, even starting before they become a patient,” says Heidi Schulte, vice president of strategy, hospital solutions at Doximity, a professional medical network. “It is a patient-centric approach that is pervasive throughout every aspect of care, and each interaction with the health system.”

But where does consumerism fit in when it comes to marketing specialty care — like cancer care? Is there any difference? Heidi Findlay, executive director of marketing and communications at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, doesn’t think so. “When people think of healthcare consumerism, they automatically jump to primary care,” she says. “That is not the case. Specialty care marketers need to adapt to this as well.”

Schulte and Findlay presented at HCIC@Home in mid-November. In their presentation, “Consumerism in Healthcare: It’s Not Just Primary Care,” the two looked at the research and discovery process patients follow when evaluating and choosing an oncologist, and how to optimize the journey at every step.

With something as scary and potentially life-threatening as a cancer diagnosis, a patient-centric approach to research and discovery is even more essential.

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