Since graduating college, you have worked in the promotion department at the headquarters of a national hospital chain. Because of your excellent record, you've now been promoted to manager of promotion for a new hospital recently opened by the chain in another part of the country. It won't be easy, as there are many competitive institutions and more public scrutiny of health care than ever before. Your budget is tight. But at least your objective is clear: to create awareness of the new hospital's great facilities and services. You're optimistic as you pack your bags and get ready to move. Right off the bat, you must make a fundamental and tricky choice: who is the correct target audience? In the past, your work has always focused on attracting patients, who of course must patronize a hospital to generate revenue. You believe that if patients feel confident about a health care facility, that institution will naturally draw good doctors and develop a positive community reputation. Plus, your evaluation will be partly based on whether patient numbers go up or down. But Dr$.$ Wills, medical advisor to the promotion department, urges you to focus on doctors, not patients. To build the quality and profile of a hospital, she argues, you must appeal to the doctors who will make referrals, order tests, do procedures, and conduct research there. This makes sense from a long$-$term perspective $-$ and you want to set yourself up for a long$-$term career $-$ but you clearly need to attract enough patients in the short term to satisfy management. Which target audience should you choose?

Patients

Doctors