Institute For The Future

Feeling the Heat

I'm working on a report on new business models in the global health economy and I came across a blog post from last year that struck a chord. It's at Hospital Impact, and it lists ten non-traditional sources of competition that hospitals face, including the retail "mini-clinic revolution," Revolution Healthcare, and Coca-Cola. I thought Coke provided an interesting example of the power of branding:

We compete with Coke in the sense that we are competing for mindshare in people's brains. There is only room for so many brands, and the ones who spend the most $$ on brand-building (and then follow through with the experience / service / product) enjoy the most loyal customers. . . .[W]e must understand that consumer's brains are getting more and more fragmented.

So what happens to traditional health providers when a powerful brand like Target starts opening up in-store health clinics across the country? What will that do to consumers' already "fragmented" brains when it comes to healthcare?