The Key Elements For Developing Strategic Brand And Exploratory Actions In County-level Hospital Of Traditional Chinese Medicine

With stronger economic competition in the nowadays world and rapid development of science and technology, the time of brand competition is coming. While health care system reform is deepening in China, all hospitals have paid more attention to the hospital brand and look for the effective method to develop their own brands. Therefore, more and more strategies have been raised and practiced. By selecting The Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Kunshan, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China as a case, the present study aims to explore the key elements of brand for county-level public hospital of traditional Chinese medicine and practice of brand construction, then summarize the uniqueness of hospital brand for public traditional Chinese medicine hospital in the developed area in China, and the potential modifying factors for development of strategies of hospital. Then, the special features and strengths of traditional Chinese medicines will be figured out. The pattern of brand strategy, the key elements and characteristics of hospital brand for traditional Chinese medicine hospital have been raised by comparing western hospital and traditional Chinese medicine hospital.In order to reach the research goal, by application of literature analysis, we checked all hospital brand-related publications to establish theoretic basis for our study. Then, we conducted interviews and field surveys to collect the opinions and comments from hospital administrators, brand experts, professional health care providers, patients and the lay people. In addition, based on theory of empirical study, by selecting The Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Kunshan as a case, we find out the connotation, uniqueness and influential factors of brand strategy for county-level traditional Chinese medicine hospitals in China. At last, the theoretic models were validated in other cases to make theories into practice.By analysis of the key elements of hospital brand of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Kunshan and its practice, we find the uniqueness of developing hospital brand of county-level public comprehensive traditional Chinese medicine hospitals. Our study provides more evidences and typical cases for related exploration of development of county-level public comprehensive traditional Chinese medicine hospitals. Our theory and methods may be applied for other studies to promote harmonious development of traditional Chinese medicine. Finally, our study is beneficial to meeting the goal of "simple, convenient, experienced and cheap" strengths of traditional Chinese medicine, and providing traditional Chinese medicine’s preventive and health care service for people with different demands, which will play a key role in new policy for health care reform in China.