Marketing and The Health Care System: Columbus Regional Hospital
Konrad Kalpen
Professor Sandra Levengood
HSA305 Health Services Marketing
2 November 2015

In the West Georgia area, Columbus Regional Hospital (formerly known as The Columbus Medical Center) served the area with very little competition to contend with. The competition was limited to Doctors Hospital that was a small privately run operation that was generally known to the public to serve the wealthier sector of the community. St. Francis Hospital, a semi-private operation that served only those with what was perceived by public as those who had the “better” insurance policies and you had to know someone to be seen there. I’m not making that up, that stood for many years in the folklore of the communities surrounding that institution and it affected that hospitals ability to grow for many years. Then there is Jack Hughston Clinic that is a world-renowned orthopedic clinic with athletes from around the world seeking treatment at that facility. The last “competitor” to Columbus Regional Hospital is Martin Army Hospital located on Fort Benning, Georgia. Geographically they are only less than 10 miles apart, but they affect each other’s markets tremendously. Over that last 20 years these upstart competitors to Columbus Regional Hospital were never really large enough to compete with the over all one stop shop capability of Columbus Regional. Columbus Regional always had the advantage of a larger market that they either were reaching out to or just appealed to. For example Doctors Hospital reached out to the elite, or rather upper class community of the Columbus Georgia area. Their marketing department was obviously banking on the fact that Columbus Georgia has one of the highest ratings for millionaires per capita in the country. It worked, but not for very long. Over the years all but one of the