~For HealthCare --- October 30

~For HealthCare --- October 30

;JP;
ANPAd..r..
Hospital-reputation-needs

Indonesian hospitals need to reputation management

Rudijanto
Contributor/Jakarta

An email sent to a cyber mailing list in the third week of
October warning all mailing list members about the poor
coordination at a Greater Jakarta-based hospital could have a
more damaging impact on the hospital's reputation once it is
published in print media.

The email sender claims to be the father of a 17-month-old
baby who was being treated in the hospital for high fever that
had reached 41 degrees C. The email states that on the third day
of treatment, the baby almost received antibiotic injections
twice in a time span of merely 30 minutes, while normally the
antibiotic injections should have a time span of eight hours.

"I rejected the second antibiotic injection and asked the
nurse to recheck it. But the nurse left the room and never
returned again. This only proves that she had committed a mistake
because she was not supposed to inject the antibiotics for a
second time in a span of 30 minutes," wrote the email sender.

The email sender said he could not imagine the harmful impact
on the condition of his baby had she received the second
antibiotic injection just 30 minutes after the first injection of
the same drug.

Though not published in any print media, such emails to group
members can certainly create a negative reputation for a
hospital, at least, in the eyes of mailing list members and all
the people they speak with on a normal basis in one of the well-
circulated mailing lists in the Indonesian cyber world.

If one mailing list member spreads the news to an average of
two friends and, in turn, these two friends tell their other two
friends, then such mouth-to-mouth news about that hospital can
spread among a really significant number of people.

Indeed any news about malpractice carried out by medical
doctors and hospital staff has a tendency to spread faster and
stay longer in people's memory than one can imagine. Both print
and electronic media too are quick to cover any malpractice cases
at hospitals.

In addition, letters to the editor section in newspapers and
magazines often publish complaints against hospitals and doctors.
Thus, one often hears people quote a long misleading perception
about the media, namely any bad news is newsworthy for the media.

But that misleading perception about the media is not true as
the media also provides space for good news involving medical
staff and hospitals. Nationwide media groups, such as Kompas and
Media Indonesia, often publish great success stories about
difficult operations, such as operations to separate conjoined
twins by local doctors.

Even provincial media such as Radar Madiun published in mid-
October some detailed coverage about the achievements of a
medical team of little-known Caruban regional hospital (RSUD
Caruban) in conducting a difficult operation to make an anus for
two-year old girl Atresia Ani, who was born without an anus.

The newspaper generously wrote that the successful anus
installment was a big leap forward for RSUD Caruban as normally,
only big hospitals such as Surabaya's RSUP Dr. Soetomo and
Yogyakarta's RSU Drs. Sardjito would have had the ability to
conduct such anus surgery.

Thus, the problem does not lie in the media, but more on the
communications aspect of hospitals in Indonesia so that good news
is rarely communicated or exposed in the media. However, the
opinion that a single piece of bad news can taint hundreds of
good works by hospitals can be true.

Himawan Wijanarko, General Manager of Strategic Services at
the Jakarta Consulting Group, admits that hospitals often
complain that there is no news about their good services to a
thousand people but, when one patient is disappointed, the media
will make it big news.

"This negative news often harms hospitals as it tends to
create a negative image of the hospital. In the long run, such
publication of negative news will create a bad reputation for
hospitals in Indonesia," Himawan said.

He believes that the source of this publication of bad news
for hospitals is the growing critical attitude among the people
towards health services in hospitals. As the media enjoys its
long-awaited freedom, this critical attitude finds its outlet in
newspaper and magazine pages.

Here, Indonesian hospitals need well-planned and well-carried
out public relations (PR) programs to manage their reputations.
This PR work has become increasingly significant as present-day
hospitals are not just charitable and social institutions just
like the ones in the past, but also profit-oriented businesses.

Himawan agrees with the shift in the character of hospitals
from social institutions to profit-oriented business, though he
stressed that the term "profit-oriented" is often disliked by
some people.

"But that is the reality. The environment is really changing
and, therefore, the people's expectations are growing high when
it comes to hospital services. Certainly, we have to accept the
fact that good hospital services require high expenses and
investment," he said.

For instance, Siloam Health CareGroup that runs the Siloam
Gleneagles Hospital in Lippo Karawaci, Siloam Gleneagles Hospital
in Lippo Cikarang, Siloam Graha Medika Hospital in Jakarta and
another Siloam Gleneagles Hospital in Surabaya have invested a
lot to make a number of quality improvement projects.

Walter Gilmore, CEO of the Siloam HealthCare Group, reveals
that the group has invested some Rp 4.5 billion on new medical
equipment for the Siloam Hospital in Cikarang. Earlier this year,
the group installed the latest CT scanner and MRI equipment at
the Siloam Hospital in Lippo Karawaci.

"We are now looking at the possibility of setting up a cancer
center here to provide Indonesian cancer patients with care at
world-class standards. To set up a high quality, comprehensive
care center would cost between US$12 million and US$14 million,
most of which would go on medical equipment," Gilmore said.

Siloam HealthCare Group is clearly not a social and charitable
foundation taking care of sick people for free. Before deciding
to make the investment, the group has certainly made a good
calculation on the return on investment and future profit from
the money paid by patients.

Siloam HealthCare Group is certainly engaged in a tough
competition in attracting patients with other big hospitals in
Greater Jakarta area and even with overseas hospitals such the
ones in Singapore or Australia.

In this tough competitive environment, reputations certainly
become very vital for a hospital's continued operation. That is
why Himawan stresses that, aside from improving their quality,
hospitals have to professionally manage their reputations.

"Hospital management groups in Indonesia often have good
intentions to boost their service quality but they often forget
to properly manage their clients' perception. Without good
perception management, the reputation of hospitals in Indonesia
is at stake," Himawan added.

To help motivate hospitals, particularly those in Greater
Jakarta, to improve their quality of services, Himawan reveals
that his company is thinking of carrying out an award program for
Greater Jakarta's hospitals some time next year.

"Aside from giving hospitals motivation to boost services, the
award program also aims at stimulating good publicity on the
positive side of hospitals in Jakarta. By doing so, we hope to
create a good balance in media news pertaining to hospitals
here," he said.

From a public relations point of view, such awards are always
useful as long as they are given by a credible institution,
preferably an objective one, and accompanied by good public
relations programs. Indeed, amid tough competition with each
other, hospitals need to take up the challenge to manage their
reputations.