Healthcare Media

Healthcare media as they are referred….
Journalists are appointed for specific beat like business, education, crime, political, etc. Each beat specific journo reports stories & news related to that specific beat. They network, specialize and understand the sector. Healthcare media or journo are the ones who report on news related to healthcare, health policies, new technologies in treatment, etc.

With the advent of competition between publications it became obligatory for media houses to assign journalists dedicated to report news on this sector, earlier city beat journalists reported on those news.

Let us now try to understand this beat.
Healthcare journalist usually reports news on Health, Health Policies, New Technology Developments, Doctors in public & private hospitals operating on unique patients, new infections, government vaccination programs, etc. Basically they report on Human interest stories, everything related to humans & health. It is important to note that most of the other reporters also do such type of reporting like the education beat, crime beat, special features, etc. But the difference is they report the same story with different angle.

Here is a case study:
FOGSI (Federation of Obstetric & Gynecological Societies of India) - Adolescent Empowerment arm is conducting seminars for young girls on how to manage their health during growing years, precautions during periods, diet management, etc. These seminars are conducted in schools only for girls in the age group of 12 to 15 years.
Taking this brief into consideration, the story will be reported by a health beat correspondent, but simultaneously an education beat journalist can also report on this, coz school & education is involved. The same story can also be reported by NGO beat reporter as FOGSI is and NGO body and the seminars are also conducted for government schools. If this seminar is sponsored by some pharmaceutical company then the story will get CSR initiative angle for that pharma company, and a financial journalist can report this corporate story highlighting CSR initiatives. A feature journo can report an informative story of things to take care for teen girls during periods & maintaining diet.

The above case highlights how a story can be reported by different beat journalists. So the bottom line is a correct strategy & pitch to the right journalists. In the business of communication the correct strategy will bore fruits, just media relations cannot help.

So understand the objective of the strategy and pitch to the right journalist accordingly. Also the main aspect is to understand healthcare journalists and how they report, their style of reporting and the placement of the news in media.

NGOs help to increase awareness on Healthcare

Healthcare and NGOs always go hand in hand. A lot of times NGOs help to address healthcare issues. NGOs work to improve healthcare facilities and services, they have lot of freedom, motivated staff, so respond easily to the needs of the healthcare community.

Following are some of the issues NGOs work on or create awareness on:

1. Malnutrition
2. Deficiency of Iron
3. Stress on students
4. Noise pollution
5. Air pollution
6. Vaccination
7. Drug abuse
8. Sexual abuse
9. Sucidie
10. Cartract operations
11. AIDS preventation

NGOs help to raise awareness on healthcare amongst patients and the common people. Their are also NGOs who promote good/healthy living manners amongst people. They work in the arena of Dental care, washing hands before eating food, etc.

So NGOs form very important part of healthcare awareness in turn growing the Healthcare industry. So it is very important for healthcare industry to promote and publicize such NGOs. Promoting NGOs will help create awareness among the target group, who in turn buy the product and increase business. NGOs act as the company's critic partner highlighting the weakness of the product. NGOs can become the CSR initiative arm of the company, thus creating goodwill about the company. It is easy to generate awareness about a disease category with the help of an NGO. NGOs can be used to attack competitors, coz when an NGO publicizes weakness/ill-effects about the competitor’s products in press they generate lot of mileage, thus impacting the business of competitor. NGOs can fight for a plea with the competitor company and still earn respect in terms of helping the society.

Healthcare is a very critical area and one mistake can lead to the downfall of a company. Coz Healthcare is related to the wellbeing of a human being and something destroying it will create negative influence.

How the company selects an NGO or should the company launch its own NGO?
Well, as per my experience the company in association with an existing NGO should launch a new NGO. The company will fund it and the NGO will take care on operations area. In the long run even if the existing NGO breaks the contract, the company can run/manage this new NGO on its own.

Companies can get detailed information on NGOs through http://www.indianngos.com/

Also can visit the following link for an more information: http://www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/20030615/conversation.shtml