Issue Management in Digital Health Communication from the Perspective of Public Relations: A Review for Hospitals on the Website of Şikâyetvar
Banu KumbasarSudden or slowly unexpected changes can occur in an organization. Issue management is a potential solution for predicting and evaluating these changes. With the issue management, the issues are determined in advance, and the potential crisis is prevented before it occurs with strategic public relations practice. A complaint from consumers may be the first indication of the issue. This research was conducted to examine the complaints about hospitals between January 1, 2019 and February 28, 2019 on the website of Şikâyetvar (“there is a complaint”), a digital platform. It was found that 74.8% of the complaints were directed toward private, 25.2% toward public hospitals. Staff communication was the most common issue of hospitals. Staff communication constitutes 40.6% of all complaints. 28.7% of the complaints toward private hospitals were about pricing, and 26.2% of the complaints about public hospitals were about the waiting period. 40.7% of the complaints for private hospitals were answered. 47.3% of the complaints were answered within 2-7 days, 24.8% within the same day. It was determined that 48% of the responses were about responsibility. While there was no response from consumers to messages containing responsibility, 45.3% of apology messages were answered by consumers with thank-you messages.
Halkla İlişkiler Perspektifinden Dijital Sağlık İletişiminde Konu Yönetimi: Şikâyetvar Web Sitesi Üzerinden Hastanelere Yönelik Bir İnceleme
Banu KumbasarBir kuruluşta ani veya yavaşça gelişen beklenmedik değişiklikler ortaya çıkabilmektedir. Konu yönetimi, bu değişiklikleri öngörmek ve değerlendirmek için potansiyel bir çözüm kaynağı olarak geliştirilmiştir. Konu yönetimi ile krize neden olabilecek konular önceden tespit edilir ve stratejik halkla ilişkiler çalışması ile potansiyel krizin ortaya çıkmadan önlenmesi sağlanır. Tüketicilerden gelen bir şikâyet, konu ile ilgili ortaya çıkan ilk belirti olabilir. Bu araştırma, konu yönetiminin bir parçası olan şikâyetlerin hastaneler kapsamında incelenmesi ve tüketici iletişiminin değerlendirilmesi amacıyla yapılmıştır. Dijital bir şikâyet platformu olan Şikâyetvar web sitesinde 1 Ocak 2019 – 28 Şubat 2019 tarihleri arasındaki hastaneler ile ilgili şikâyetler ve hastanelerin bu şikâyetler doğrultusundaki konu yönetimi yaklaşımları kapsamında tüketici iletişimleri incelenmiştir. Şikâyetlerin %74.8’inin özel hastanelere, %25.2’sinin kamu hastanelerine yönelik olduğu saptanmıştır. Özel ve kamu hastanelerinde yaygın şikâyet konusu personel iletişimidir. Personel iletişimi tüm şikâyetlerin %40.6’sını oluşturmaktadır. Özel hastanelere yönelik şikâyetlerin %28.7’si ücretlendirme, kamu hastanelerine yönelik şikâyetlerin %26.2’si bekleme süresi ile ilgilidir. Özel hastanelere gelen şikâyetlerin %40.7’si farklı mesaj stratejileriyle yanıtlanmıştır. Şikâyetlerin %47.3’ü 2-7 gün, %24.8’i aynı gün içerisinde yanıtlanmıştır. Yanıtların mesaj stratejisine bakıldığında mesajların %48’inin sorumluluk içerikli olduğu belirlenmiştir. Sorumluluk içerikli mesajlara tüketicilerden bir yanıt gelmezken, özür mesajlarının %45.3’ü tüketiciler tarafından teşekkür mesajı ile yanıtlanmıştır.
The smooth functioning of an organization is often threatened by sudden and unexpected events, such as the advent of new competitors, destructive technologies, or economic crises. In this regard, issue management approaches to tackle these challenges were discussed, and over time, issue management approaches began to develop. Issue management has been proposed as a potential solution to anticipate and address such threats. Issue management, which is one of the public relations functions; it covers a wide range of content, ranging from the management philosophy and policy of the organizations to their communication with the stakeholders. Issue management, with a focus on communication aims to identify, analyze, and solve issues that may cause a crisis in organization early on. The development of digital environments, has strengthened the ability to easily relay complaints, which has further reinforced the necessity of employing issue management, approaches in tackling such issues. With the help of issue management approaches, issues that may cause certain crises are identified in advance and strategic communication methods are used to intervene against potential crises and prevent the crises from emerging. In the context of issue management; issues are defined as controversial inconsistencies caused by gaps between the expectations of organizations and the expectations of the public. These gaps lead to a controversial point of difference where the decision can have significant consequences for an organization. While organizations and stakeholders may be concerned about the same issue, their perspectives are rarely the same. The role of the issue management process is to determine the existence and possible effects of these controversial differences. Issues are generally defined as having a life cycle consisting of five stages (early, developing, current, crisis, and dormant-passive). In simple terms, if an issue progresses to the first four stages, it gets more attention and becomes less manageable from the organization’s point of view. As the issue matures, the number of relevant stakeholders, the public and other influencers grow; the situation becomes more robust and the organization’s existing strategic preferences shrink. When the issue becomes a crisis for the organization, the responses then become reactive. Not all issues reach the stage of a crisis and many crises are not the result of a fundamental problem.
This research was conducted to evaluate consumer communication and the hospitals’ response to consumer complaints. For this purpose, the following research questions were developed:
RQ1: What are the issues of shared complaints about hospitals in the digital environment?
RQ2: What are the message strategies that hospitals share in terms of issue management approach?
Şikâyetvar (“there is a complaint”) was established in 2001. It is a digital platform that serves all of Turkey, with offices in different provinces. Brands operating in different sectors are among the corporate members of this platform. It is a reference site that affects consumer behavior and brand preferences. Complaints toward the hospitals and the hospitals’ consumer communication approaches were examined. Complaints registered between January 1, 2019 – February 28, 2019 taken into account. The registered complaints were classified according to different issue categories. Complaints received within two months were evaluated by content analysis method within the scope of issue management. It was found that 74.8% of the complaints were toward the private hospitals and 25.2% were to the public hospitals. The most common complaint issue in public/private hospitals was staff communication. While the second most common issue in private hospitals was pricing, waiting period was the second most common complaint in public hospitals. 40.7% of the complaints received by private hospitals were answered. 47.3% of the complaints were answered within 2-7 days. 45.3% of apology messages were answered by consumers with thank-you messages.
An organizational issue is an internal or external situation or event, which if it persists, will have a significant impact on the operation, performance, and future interests of the organization. The main purpose of issue management is to control the impact of such challenges. Therefore, it is necessary to identify any potential issue early on before it becomes a crisis and develop a strategy in line with management principles. As a result, it can be said that public relations practitioners are required to strategically address the complaints shared by the consumers in the digital environment before they turn into a crisis. It is also important to communicate with healthcare consumers within the same 24 hours of receiving a complaint.
