Promoting Hospitals’ Brand Reputation through Mobile Apps. A Quantitative Analysis about the Best Hospitals in Spain

Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate how hospitals manage mobile applications to reinforce their relations with patients and promote their brands. To do that, we conducted a literature review about hospitals’ corporate communication, their branding initiatives, and their use of mobile apps for this purpose; then, we defined 36 indicators to quantitively analyze how the 150 best hospitals in Spain used mobile apps to promote their brands. We concluded that hospitals should follow a public health logic to develop mobile apps that contribute to establish a new communication paradigm among patients and doctors.