Interacting with Healthcare Consumers
Urgent care facilities are a very critical part of the health care system. Walk-in clinics for urgent care provide an alternative to health-seeking patients outside their primary care providers’ scheduling. In addition, urgent care clinics provide convenient on-demand patient appointments and use the services of nurse practitioners (Hoff & Prout, 2019). These urgent care facilities eliminate the need for emergency room care for patients with non-life-threatening health care needs. This makes walk-in clinics for urgent care more convenient to visit than emergency departments affiliated with hospitals. The clinics also improve the accessibility to health care services and reduce the issues of overcrowding in the emergency department (Davis et al., 2018).
The Location and Facility Selected
Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Urgent Care Palestine is a specialty urgent care facility in Palestine, Texas. The urgent care facility helps the residents of Palestine access convenient, quality, and affordable orthopedic care at any time of the day. The Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Hospital owns and manages the facility. The facility is well-equipped with qualified orthopedic specialists to support it in providing urgent care services as needed. The Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Hospital Urgent Care is located in Palestine at 2211 S Loop 256, Palestine, TX 75801. This location is convenient for most of the patients in Palestine and makes it easy for the urgent care facility to serve patients within its operation area.
The Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Urgent Care Palestine specializes in providing urgent care services, including physical examination, physical and sports-related bone and joint injuries, and problems including breaks, fractures, sprains, and back pain, among others. The clinic also provides care for other non-severe health problems besides orthopedic conditions, including colds, flu, and seasonal allergies in the community. The services by Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Urgent Care Palestine are accessible as needed, making the facility a better alternative for hospital-affiliated emergency rooms.
Demographics of the Consumers for Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Urgent Care Palestine Services
There is a growing demand for urgent care services within primary care settings. This has been contributed to much by the overcrowding in the available hospital-affiliated emergency department (ED) and concern over the increased costs for minor health care services. Further, overcrowding contributes to longer waiting times which can impact the care outcomes and need for acute care services. The Palestine region has a limited number of hospitals and standard emergency rooms to meet the emergency and urgent care needs of the population.
The Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Urgent Care Palestine has specialized care providers who focus on providing the best family-friendly urgent care possible. Being a family-focused urgent care facility means that it provides care services to all patients, from pediatrics to adults with orthopedic conditions. For pediatric and children urgent services, Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Urgent Care Palestine provides back-to-school services, including school physicals for children, which help parents assess their children’s development, address health concerns, and support the delivery of pediatric and children vaccination programs.
The facility also has a school physical urgent care program for teenagers and young adults in schools and colleges that includes the examination of the physical fitness, health condition, and the risk of injury of students and individuals before they can participate in their school’s sporting activities. The Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Urgent Care Palestine has other urgent care services that cover the needs of the whole family and population, such as wound care, x-rays, casting, pelvic examinations, vision tests, laboratory tests including pregnancy, STIs, and other disease tests, general population vaccinations, general physical examinations, and other general on-demand care services.
The Marketing Used to Bring in Consumers to Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Urgent Care Palestine
Urgent care facilities, like other for-profit businesses, must invest in marketing to achieve a desired level of competitiveness, gain more consumers for the services provided, and make a decent profit. Marketing in healthcare is more focused on the care desires, needs, and demands of the patients and other consumers in the area served by the healthcare facilities. Healthcare organizations and hospitals must carry out marketing and market research to develop healthcare services that meet the exact needs of the population and provide quality and valuable services to the targeted population (Syed et al., 2021).
Baylor Scott & White Texas Spine & Joint Urgent Care Palestine has adopted a good marketing mix for its services to improve its competitiveness in the urgent care market. A good marketing mix focuses on the product, pricing, point of sale, and promotion (Berkowitz, 2022). The facility has employee digital marketing methods, including using its own websites to provide details on its products and services and an estimation of the care costs before making a decision on the service required. The facility also advertises across other social media platforms and makes use of the parent hospital’s market success as a competitive advantage to promote its services across Palestine.
References
Berkowitz, E. N. (2022). Essentials of Health Care Marketing (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Davis, T., Meyer, A., Beste, J., & Batish, S. (2018). Decreasing Low Acuity Pediatric Emergency Room Visits with Increased Clinic Access and Improved Parent Education. The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 31(4), 550–557. https://doi.org/10.3122/JABFM.2018.04.170474
Hoff, T., & Prout, K. (2019). Comparing Retail Clinics with Other Sites of Care. Medical Care, 57(9), 734–741. https://doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000001164
Syed, M., Ahmed, F., Zahid, N., Khalid, N., & Israr, N. (2021). Essentials of Healthcare Marketing. Asian Journal of Medicine and Health, 73–79. https://doi.org/10.9734/AJMAH/2021/V19I230306
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Question 
Preparing for the Assignment:
Select 1 of the following in your community or surrounding area: Palestine, TX
Walk-in clinic, such as an urgent care facility
Retail clinic in your local grocery store or retail pharmacy
No-appointment physician’s office
Interacting with Healthcare Consumers
Research the market of this facility. Consider the following as you complete your research:
Demographics of the consumers who use the facility selected
The location of the facility selected
The marketing used to bring in consumers to the facility selected
Assignment Directions:
Write a 700- to 1,050-word paper that analyzes the market perspective of the facility selected.
Ensure you:
Describe the location and facility selected.
Analyze the cultural and generational demographics of the consumers who use the selected facility.
Analyze the marketing approach used for the facility.
Consider the targeted audience of the facility based on the demographics of the consumers who use the facility.
Consider whether marketing techniques can be the same when marketing to different demographics.
Format your references according to APA guidelines.