No abstract

Drug abuse and addiction continues to negatively impact many lives in this country. The United States health care system has grappled with how to best serve this vulnerable population. Since the personal and societal costs of addiction are high, all recent iterations of the United States strategic health plans (such as Healthy People 2010) have prioritized this area for improvement. At the local level, health care providers who care for those with addictions are challenged with shrinking insurance coverage for services, a difficult patient population, lack of treatment options, growing ranks of indigent patients, as well as a plethora of additional management challenges. It is known that successful treatment is integrally linked with patient satisfaction with services. The most critical factors in successful addiction treatment (from a patient's perspective) are (1) their belief that the counselor cares about them and, (2) their belief that they can recover. This paper reports a case study in the use of a patient satisfaction survey as a quality management/service refinement tool within a methadone treatment setting. Results indicate that the use of the survey itself provides patients with a tangible cue supporting the presence of the critical success factors. Further, the use of a survey provides a baseline for future measurements and trending. The paper concludes with a discussion of the marketing and organizational implications of incorporating the patient satisfaction survey into the ongoing delivery program for addiction services.

A nation‐wide survey of hospital providers was conducted in an effort to determine the type and level of promotion and advertising agency utilization. The study indicated that a majority of the hospitals surveyed are engaging in some form of advertising activity. Survey results further showed agency usage was highly correlated to hospital bed size. Additionally, contrary to previous research, hospital ownership status (for‐profit/not‐for‐profit) was not found to significantly affect agency utilization. Specifics about hospital/agency relationships are presented.

Promoting the idea of blood donation as well as the successful recruitment of blood donors represents substantial marketing challenges. For example, blood products have a short shelf life, donation is invasive, the industry is heavily regulated, and safety issues restrict the number of eligible donors. Moreover, many organizations that collect blood are non-profit services that are not equipped to make use of many of the tools of marketing and promotion. In the for-profit world, organizations are increasingly using sponsorships to enhance the effectiveness of their marketing expenditures. This paper reports on the use of a sponsorship to increase blood drive donations. The sponsorship used a standing annual holiday promotion/stakeholder appreciation campaign conducted by a large local group of gastroenterologists. Linkage of the sponsorship to a local blood drive resulted in increased response rates from donors and in the number of units of blood collected. Implications of the use of sponsorships for future blood drives are discussed.

Excessive drinking is more common among Whites (W) than African Americans (AA) on college campuses, but the reasons for this are not clear. The authors investigated demographic and personality factors in a group of 369 W and 202 AA college students, finding that alcohol consumption was significantly less prevalent among AA students (69%) than W students (78%) (p = .02) and that binge drinking was significantly less frequent in AA drinkers (42% past month, 60% past year) than W drinkers (56%, 79%) (p < .00001). Cigarette smoking was also dramatically less frequent in AA students (5%) than W students (28%) (p < .00001). AA students also scored significantly higher on Overcontrolled Hostility (M = 18.2, SEM = 0.40) than did W students (M = 15.7, SEM = 0.19) (p < .00001). The authors conclude that AA college students are a more self-selected group of high achievers who reveal evidence of superior self-regulatory skills.