Welcome to the third issue of IJPHM

Citation

Mukherjee, A. (2007), "Welcome to the third issue of IJPHM", International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijphm.2007.32401caa.001

Welcome to the third issue of IJPHM

As the third issue of the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing (IJPHM) goes to print, I am happy to report that the journal has been receiving a greater variety of submissions – more papers from practitioners, more technical papers, more viewpoint papers, and more commentary pieces, along with the usual data-driven empirical papers. There is also greater interest shown by scholars from public health, medical and pharmacy schools along with business schools. This is exactly the kind of eclectic dialogue that the journal aims to achieve.

In this issue, we have a collection of five interesting papers spanning various issues of theoretical and practical relevance in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector. When this journal was conceived in 2006, we announced receptivity to considering research pieces of high quality but broader in scope than traditional papers. This included viewpoint papers, technical notes, research notes, commentary papers, practitioner perspectives, and case studies. Given the specialized nature of the journal, it was felt necessary to offer such research of managerial relevance to our readers. This issue contains traditional research papers, technical note, and viewpoint papers, representing a gamut of engaging, contemporary topics with strong, value-adding contributions in substantive, managerially-relevant issues in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector.

The first paper by Williams and Heller of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services develops a segmentation scheme for medicare beneficiaries based on a dataset of 9,520 individuals. Based on the two dimensions of healthcare decision-making skills and motivation, four segments are identified using cluster analysis: active, passive, high effort, and complacent. The four segments differ significantly on the patient activation subscales (self-efficacy, doctor relationship, assertiveness, shared decision-making, information seeking), as well as on knowledge, income, education, health behaviour, health status and preferred information sources. Finally, the authors develop a Segmentation Screening Tool (SST) to predict an individual's segment, so that outreach activities and educational messages can be targeted to and tailored for each segment effectively.

The second paper by Cohen studies the new Dutch health insurance system and its implications for pharmaceutical innovation. While there is some research on how changes in the drug regulatory framework impact pharmaceutical innovation, very little is known about how changes in the healthcare insurance system impact the pharmaceutical industry's incentives to innovate. Outlining the recent reforms in the Dutch health insurance system based on Enthoven's managed competition model, Cohen demonstrates that the new Dutch health insurance system has some positive and some negative influences on pharmaceutical innovation. The paper sheds valuable light on the changing healthcare marketplace in an advanced European economy.

This is followed by a technical paper by Browe and Wang, who propose an innovative web-enabled product ID system to improve pharmaceutical marketing and customer relationship management. The web-based product ID system will be able to provide a means for product validation and database marketing, facilitate interactive marketing communication and viral marketing, and collect customer information and feedback for research activities.

The salience and relevance of the role of marketing in healthcare comes under critical scrutiny in two viewpoint papers in this issue. I hope such philosophical scholarly pieces on the role of marketing in healthcare will generate sufficient debate and discussion amongst healthcare scholars and managers.

The fourth paper by Bonnici reflects on patient dumping practices and Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) through the lens of the marketing concept. Bonnici argues using literature from marketing, public policy, and law that the marketing concept, though generally useful in hospital management, does not fit in well within the broader hospital services such as emergency medical treatments. The author explains the evolution of the EMTALA in the USA and how the marketing concept falls woefully inadequate in preventing dumping of indigent patients from emergency care.

Finally, we have a viewpoint paper by Kay, who adopts a critical approach to the concept of healthcare marketing and examines some salient issues, mostly pertaining to the US healthcare sector. Kay compares and contrasts the consumer (or patient) perspective and the institutional (or organizational) perspective by highlighting salient systemic and structural issues such as societal service systems, consumer choice, consumer access to healthcare information, consumer decision-making, healthcare quality imperatives, advances in medical technology, evidence-based healthcare practices, and the escalating cost of healthcare. The paper exposes the current lack of clear direction and the excesses of the more “market-based” US healthcare system.

Once again, I am thankful to my Emerald Publishers, Kate Snowden and James Rand for their continuous support; to my editorial assistant Kai Li Weng for painstakingly formatting accepted papers to IJPHM standards; to my reviewers for promptly submitting their reports; and to my editorial board for providing ideas and suggestions from time-to-time. I hope this issue will continue to stimulate our intellect, provoke our thoughts, and generate some timely discussions.

Avinandan Mukherjee