POSITIONING OF HEALTH CARE SERVICE: EXAMINATION OF THE ADVERTISEMENTS AND STAKEHOLDER PERCEPTIONS

获得高质量的医疗保健是当今国家面临的最紧迫的问题之一，而这场辩论中错综复杂地交织在一起的是医生和医院提供的专业服务的广告。对保健服务广告的关注基于这样一种观念，即保健从根本上不同于其他商品或服务，因此以传统的、基于市场的方式分配有限的资源可能会有问题。还提出了与保健服务提供者和公众之间的信息不对称有关的问题。另一方面，以市场为基础的卫生经济的倡导者认为，广告通过降低价格和增加选择来帮助卫生服务消费者。然而，几乎没有经验证据支持或反驳任何一方的说法。目前还不清楚医疗保健专业人员对广告的担忧程度或矛盾心理，以及医疗保健服务营销人员意识到这种紧张关系的程度（如果有的话）。对消费者保健服务广告素养的研究很少，尽管他们经常是高技术和往往非常昂贵的服务广告的直接目标。本研究将透过产生具体的知识与证据，加强医疗保健行销教育与实务。此外，本研究将透过评估公众对广告讯息的理解程度，为医疗保健服务消费者教育奠定基础。最终，本研究将阐明如何在不浪费医疗资源和损害医患关系的情况下，部署医疗保健服务广告来刺激健康竞争，从而有助于提高个人和社区的福祉。在研究医疗保健服务广告的内容和利益相关者的看法和态度时，本研究采用了定位理论（一种分析组织战略传播的框架），以更好地理解利益相关者的立场、广告所传达的信息以及医疗行业与社会关系的叙述之间的关系。本研究有三个目标：1)系统分析医疗保健服务广告的内容，以全面准确地了解当前医疗保健服务广告的做法；2)绘制和评估医生、消费者和医疗保健营销人员对广告的做法、目标、责任和道德问题的立场；3)推动定位理论作为组织战略传播的分析框架。为了达到目标，将对保健服务广告进行内容分析，对医生和保健营销人员进行调查，并对消费者进行焦点小组调查。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Access to quality health care is one of the most pressing issues the nation is facing today and intricately interwoven in the debate is the advertising for the professional services provided by physicians and hospitals. The concerns about health care service advertising are founded on the notion that health care is fundamentally different from other commodities or services and thus the conventional, market-based distribution of the limited resources can be problematic. Also raised are the issues related to information asymmetry between health care service providers and the public. Advocates of a market-based health economy, on the other hand, argue that advertising helps health service consumers by bringing down prices and increasing choices. However, little empirical evidence exists to support or rebuke the claims purported by either side. It is also unclear what degrees of concern or ambivalence exists among health care professionals about the advertisements and how much, if any, health care service marketers are aware of the tension. Research on consumers' health care service advertising literacy is scarce, although they are often directly targeted by the advertisements for highly technical and often very costly services. This research will enhance health care marketing education and practice by generating concrete knowledge and evidence. In addition, the current study will lay a groundwork for health care service consumer education by gauging public understanding of the advertising messages. Ultimately, this research will illuminate how health care service advertisements can be deployed to spur healthy competition without wasting health care resources and compromising the doctor-patient relationship, and thus contribute to the enhanced wellbeing of individuals and communities.In examining the content of health care service advertisements and perceptions and attitudes of the stakeholders, this research employs positioning theory, a framework for analyzing strategic communication of organizations, to better understand the relationships among the positions taken by the stakeholders, the messages conveyed through the advertisements, and the narratives about the relationship between the medical profession and society. The proposed study has three objectives: 1) To systematically analyze the content of health care service advertisements to capture a comprehensive and accurate picture of current health care service advertising practices; 2) To map and assess the positions of physicians, consumers, and health care marketers regarding the practices, aims, responsibilities, and ethical issues unique to the advertisements; 3) To advance positioning theory as an analytical framework for the strategic communication of organizations. To meet the objectives, content analysis of health care service advertisements, surveys of physicians and health care marketers, and a consumer focus group will be conducted.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.