Removing the barriers in health care services: the importance of emotional satisfaction.

The competitive environment forces health care organizations to measure the quality and satisfaction as perceived by their health care consumers in order to determine both their financial and non-financial performance. The aim of this study was to examine the role of the consumers' emotional satisfaction in health care services. More exactly, the study investigated the role of emotional satisfaction in two directions: as a consequence of perceived functional quality and as a precursor of the consumers' behavioral intentions, such as loyalty and WOM, integrated into a conceptual model. The sample size was of 100 respondents, health care consumers of a private medical organization. The sampling method consisted of quota sampling, suggesting that each fifth individual received a questionnaire. The demographic profile of the health care consumers was determined in SPSS version 21 and the model was validated in SmartPls version 3, using the Structural Equation Modeling. Most of the respondents (51%) were male, from urban residential area (56%) and were aged between 28 and 37 years (40%). In terms of education, the vast majority had university degrees (47%), with their revenue between 2600-3000 RON (27%), married (51%) and who visited the doctor because of routine check-ups (47%). Moreover, the empirical model revealed that there are positive relationships between relationship quality and perceived quality, relationship quality and emotional satisfaction, perceived quality and loyalty, emotional satisfaction and loyalty as well as emotional quality and WOM.

The adaptation of health care marketing to the digital era.

The purpose of health care marketing is to learn and understand the needs and desires of prospective patients in order to be able to meet those necessities at the highest standards. A big advantage is the targeting capability of the electronic media that has led to its being used by managers of marketing in medical institutions as means of advertisement when they develop the marketing strategies. Regarding social media, it is safe to say that there are communication platforms that can promote certain behaviours thus influencing decision-making. Through social media, people stay in touch with other people and they can provide a mean for medical institutions to permanently communicate with the existing patients or with the potential ones. In addition, social media can be used in advertising and promoting strategies, by posting information about discounts, offers and advantages of accessing the products provided by a certain institution. A study was conducted on 126 patients of a dental clinic in Bucharest. 126 new patients were selected on a period of 22 months from January 2015 until October 2016. The patients never had any treatment in this clinic and were influenced by the Internet to seek for dental care services. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the digital methods of promoting medical services, bringing new patients to a clinic. The results of the study demonstrated the need for digital methods of promoting medical care services in order to expand a business. A strategic way of thinking in this case implied attracting new patients and offering them quality health care services, which ensured their satisfaction and the probability of their recommending the health facility further. This study revealed an important role of social networking sites in promoting. This high response was probably responsible due to targeted promoting services. Almost all the new patients who completed the form will remain patients of this clinic in future.

The management of health care service quality. A physician perspective.

Applying marketing in health care services is presently an essential element for every manager or policy maker. In order to be successful, a health care organization has to identify an accurate measurement scale for defining service quality due to competitive pressure and cost values. The most widely employed scale in the services sector is SERVQUAL scale. In spite of being successfully adopted in fields such as brokerage and banking, experts concluded that the SERVQUAL scale should be modified depending on the specific context. Moreover, the SERVQUAL scale focused on the consumer's perspective regarding service quality. While service quality was measured with the help of SERVQUAL scale, other experts identified a structure-process-outcome design, which, they thought, would be more suitable for health care services. This approach highlights a different perspective on investigating the service quality, namely, the physician's perspective. Further, we believe that the Seven Prong Model for Improving Service Quality has been adopted in order to effectively measure the health care service in a Romanian context from a physician's perspective.

The management of external marketing communication instruments in health care services.

In order to become known and attract consumers, a health care organization has to develop suitable external communication campaigns. Consequently, management instruments are employed to effectively evaluate the success of a campaign. The BCG Matrix, SWOT analysis and the Gantt Diagram were used in this paper to ensure the consistency and accuracy of the external communication process at an empirical level.

Cause and effect: the linkage between the health information seeking behavior and the online environment--a review.

Today, health care consumers are taking more control over their health care problems, investing more time in finding and getting information as well as looking for proper methods in order to investigate more closely the health care information received from their physicians. Unfortunately, in health care consumers' views, the trustworthiness of health authorities and institutions has declined in the last years. So, consumers have found a new solution to their health problems, that is, the Internet. Recently, studies revealed that consumers seeking for health information have more options to look for data in comparison to the methods used a few years ago. Therefore, due to the available technology, consumers have more outlets to search for information. For instance, the Internet is a source that has revolutionized the way consumers seek data due its customized methods of assessing both quantitative and qualitative information which may be achieved with minimal effort and low costs, offering at the same time, several advantages such as making the decision process more efficient.

Molecular events in gastric carcinogenesis.

Gastric cancer represents an important problem for the public health, being one of the main causes of mortality. At present, it represents the second cause of mortality due to cancer, after the bronchopulmonary cancer in men and the fourth cause of mortality in women. Important progresses have been made in the last couple of years in determining the neoplastic etiopathogenesis, but it cannot be affirmed that the genetic mutations chain, which leads to the appearance of the malignant cell, has been fully understood.