Addressing current competitive trends

Article Outline

• Copyright

We live in a historical time of unparalleled growth in the air medical community. With this growth come demonstrable change, competition, and challenges. Several trends have emerged and seem to be gaining momentum.

The days of a traditional hospital-based program being the one and only provider of service in a particular area, region, or state are gone. Community- or remote-based operations are becoming more and more popular, even the norm. I remember the beginning of my own emergency medical service career, when all the ambulances were based at the local hospital. We responded from there and rapidly transported the patients back to the place we had just come from. At some point, someone had the grand idea of placing the ambulance where the patients were, out in the community. We now see this shift happening within our industry: the community-based program can operate on a smaller budget while offering “traditional” service.

Competition among programs, agencies, and companies is increasing. Community-based programs are growing into many underserved—and some would argue overserved—areas of the country. This growth and competition has its good and bad points and has led to several general trends. Previously underserved areas now have an aircraft. Many good companies are rewarded, whereas poor performers are challenged. However, overly competitive behavior and practices have the potential to drive unsafe operational and patient care decisions.

Some hospital systems, leaders, private companies, and agencies view air medical transport as a cash cow or tipping point to bring patients into a particular health system. The aircraft, crew, and service are used as a collective leverage point to gain market share, make money, and increase influence. The amount of money spent on marketing, advertising, and outreach is staggering and growing rapidly, yet all too often we see a pattern of skimping on people, equipment, and training.

Make no mistake; organizations and individuals who take advantage of loose regulation and meet only minimum standards damage our industry. To survive in the current environment, we must practice the following ideals, both as individuals and as organizations.

Realize that personal and system performance are everything. First and foremost, you must operate safely. Second, you must be competent and treat patients, customers, and colleagues with dignity; incompetence and rudeness are a dangerous combination. Expensive marketing gimmicks, trinkets, and pizza deliveries don't make up for poor system performance. You must constantly sharpen safety, aviation, clinical, and operational performance.

Combat complacency. In all aspects of a program, complacency or apathy to safety or missions exists. Whether you are in a leadership position or not, you owe it to yourself and your colleagues to combat this pair and help others develop a skill set and mindset to do the same. Many of us have good or even superior technical skills but suffer from “attention fatigue” that diminishes our mental edge.

Know your competitor. When asked who the top competitor is, most of us answer with the name of the closest program. The real number-one competitor is you and your program. You are competing against complacency in your safety, aviation, clinical, and operational performance. You can control this competitor; you cannot control the competitor across town. Focus on yourself and those immediately around you.

Play the hits. Maximize, leverage, and fortify existing assets and capabilities that work well for you and your program. Resist the urge to start a new ancillary service or new product line (eg, existing rotor-wing program starts an ECMO transport program) in hopes of gaining significant market share. If it's working, improve it!

Make outreach, marketing, and program development a core discipline of your organization. You don't have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to effectively market, but you must have a plan. Your outreach and marketing program should have sufficient capital, a sound plan focusing on loyal system activators, and documented protocols/policies.

Get over it. If there isn't a program besides yours within 80 miles, there is one on the way. The days of being the one and only group in a helicopter with the cool-looking flight suits, come to save the day, also are gone. The only good things from the past are lessons learned and pleasant memories.

If you don't like what is going on in your program, community, or the industry at large, get involved. Educate your market space. Give your customers information to differentiate you from your competitors and defend consumers' rationale for using you rather than a competing program. Always tell the truth. Operate with a high set of standards.

The trends mentioned here will continue to abound, but the human dynamic of this business is much more important than the technical dynamic. Stay focused on that. We each have a personal duty to manage ourselves within this constantly changing environment; the other guys will take care of themselves.