Market Conditions

Introduction:

Over the next few weeks, you will explore the steps involved in the planning process and how they work together to develop the overall strategic direction of an organization. An important element of the planning process is understanding the marketplace. In the marketing spectrum, this refers to having the ability to identify and relate to your target audience. Once you understand your target audience, you can better ascertain its decision-making process as a consumer (thereby ensuring that your organization remains strategically placed in the market). Likewise, it is important to identify the competition in the market and assess its ability to provide services. Without these abilities, there is no strategic direction for the organization to move.

In this assignment, you will assess the condition of a specific healthcare market based on its current population. This will require that you research a type of service, location (city/state), and the demographics of the respective population. Understanding these variables will help you examine whether there is an opportunity for new market entry with a similar service (creating new competition).

You will have the flexibility to select any type of healthcare service and any city/state that interests you.

For example, you may be interested to research acute care (a type of service) in Savannah, Georgia (location). In this example, you would need to research the existing acute care market and population in Savannah.

Please review the following resources and, using specific information from these resources, your course resources, and additional research, address the tasks posed below:

Resources:

• United States Census 2010. (n.d.). Interactive population map. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/2010census/popmap/
• United States Census Bureau. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/
• Medicare.gov. (n.d.). Find & compare doctors, hospitals, & other providers. Retrieved from https://www.medicare.gov/forms-help-and-resources/find-doctors-hospitals-and-facilities/quality-care-finder.html
• United States Department of Labor. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dol.gov/

Tasks:

• Select a type of healthcare service (acute care, rural health clinic, long-term care, home health care, etc.) and a location (city/state) that interests you.
• Provide an overview of the type of service and location you selected.
• Summarize the population (demographics, density, etc.) of the location you selected (include unique trends, unusual population density, trends, etc.).
• Discuss the presence of competition in the location you selected (presence, density, unique services provided, etc.).
• Recommend whether you would develop new competition in this target market (consider existing competition, workforce, etc.) on the basis of your findings.