Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 16th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Panel Session on Health Policies and their Implementation Author(s) Milena Vladimirova Technical University of Sofia Sofia Bulgaria Title Marketing of hospital treatment - tool for better service delivery(case of Bulgaria) File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Health marketing has become an important and largely discussed subject for the improvement of health activities in Bulgaria.With indicative recommendations from the Ministry of Health, all public hospitals have been engaged in 2005-2007 to prepare their first marketing plan. The paper analyzes this first attempt and reveals its directions, achievements and weaknesses. It emphasizes the role of systematic marketing as part of the business plan of public hospitals, as well as ad hoc reaction through the acceptance unit within hospitals for accepting and directing patients according to their current needs.The first approach is more strategic with positive consequences for general hospital improvement ,while the second is more operational. Both of them have their importance and should be applied in combination. The practice in Bulgaria: initially the principal (Ministry of Health) enforces the agents (public hospitals) to develop the business plan with a compulsory element: marketing plan. This was a great step ahead. Lately, without compulsory rules from the principal, the hospitals left the practice and use mainly operational marketing.In the same time some other marketing novelties have been launced.The new established private hospitals develop their first marketing plans. Conclusions: the paper presents how difficult is the process of introducing modern market tools for improvement the efficiency and effectiveness of the hospitals. Despite the different barriers, there is no other alternative: marketing plan and other market and quasi approaches should be developed for public and private hospitals in order to reach higher efficiency and better service delivery.
