September 1, 2022  |  Lynn Schear

Outpatient Care Centers: A Sector with Buying Power in Need of Support

You might not realize it, but the majority of healthcare takes place in nonhospital environments, like doctors' offices, dental practices and imaging centers. These outpatient care centers play a critical role in helping patients live healthier, happier lives.

And they need the resources and products that healthcare marketers can provide, now more than ever.

Opportunities in Outpatient Care

With more and more patients accessing outpatient care, the industry is in a vulnerable position. With current resources stretched thin, it needs the right healthcare vendors in place to deliver the right products and services to help support several key areas.

Prepping for the Silver Tsunami

With baby boomers (and even Gen Xers) entering seniority, there are 69.7 million patients expected to be eligible for Medicare in 2030 – many of whom will need regular nonemergency care. That includes attentive caregivers, innovative medical technology, and a comfortable place to receive treatment. This ensuing wave of older generations is putting pressure on outpatient care centers to fully provide the necessary care these senior patients deserve.

It's a challenge that presents a tremendous opportunity for healthcare marketers to provide critical equipment. Everything from PPE and medical devices to office supplies and technology can help prepare outpatient care centers to address their quickly growing patient population's needs moving forward.

Caring for Patients and Staff

Healthcare workers, exhausted after long shifts and burdened with clinical burnout, are leaving their positions faster than they can be filled. Unfortunately, the COVID–19 pandemic only further exacerbated the issue, and the industry is still recovering. Now, as the staffing crisis in the medical industry continues to grow, there's a greater understanding of not only what patients need, but what specialized outpatient clinics, and the healthcare industry as a whole, can do to help solve clinicians' needs.

Healthcare marketers can help close the care gap on staffing shortages by providing solutions to these stressful challenges. It starts by connecting with healthcare decision–makers and offering them tools and resources to better support their staff's needs, including mental health solutions and prioritizing the overall well–being of their healthcare professionals.

Maintaining Infrastructure and Equipment

Investing in medical infrastructure is another critical component that can relieve the burden on outpatient care providers. This includes everything that comprises the built environment of a care center and its supporting elements: sustainability and accessibility initiatives, IT support and cybersecurity, systems configuration and much more. Many of today's struggling outpatient care centers may require reconfiguration of one or some of this infrastructure to promote seamless and efficient healthcare across the continuum of care.

Additionally, outpatient care facilities need high–quality technology and equipment to deliver the best care possible for their patients. But to ensure this state–of–the–art checklist is being rigorously met, every aspect of the life cycle of a device must be evaluated. At a high level, that involves undergoing several time–consuming and in–depth steps, including requirement specifications, evaluation of product competition, decontamination, procurement, introduction, maintenance and quality assurance, disposal, and budgeted plans for replacement. This may be the ideal process, but that doesn't necessarily make it a realistic one.

That's where healthcare marketers can fill the gap with products and solutions to help improve outpatient infrastructures – on both the physical and network level. Plus, they can supply updated medical equipment, technology and services to the locations that desperately need them.

Using Healthcare Data to Reach Potential Clients

As you can see, outpatient care centers have a laundry list of critical needs to meet the high demands of their expanding patient population. Healthcare marketers have the solutions – and MCH has the data to reach the right decision–makers.

MCH Strategic Data's outpatient care resources help remove the guesswork by connecting you directly to hundreds of thousands of influential prospects (more than 640,000 outpatient centers and over 1,500,000 personnel) seeking medical gear, updated technology, office provisions, and other vital solutions. Improve your sales strategy by customizing our data based on location, job title, specialties, and provider degrees and certifications – even electronic medical record status. With our accurate and targeted email lists, your message is guaranteed to land at the top of their inboxes and your product at the forefront of their minds.

Visit MCH's website to discover our data–generating ListBuilder tool. Have any questions? Our sales experts are happy to help! Reach out by calling (800) 776–6373.

More Insight from MCH

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• Read about the healthcare of healthcare workers.