Social Marketing in Emergency Medical Care Services
Emergency Medical Care is the area of public service, where we face an outcome, before having the opportunity address the challenges and health issues and prevent, at times the worst, from happening. The target of emergency care professionals is to create sustainability in human behaviors that help to improve health and well-being. Currently, in many situations we can observe that people neglect their own health and demonstrate resistance to preventive care services. This common belief that “unless something happens”, medical centers are a “no-go” place. The reality, however, is different. The government is placing a lot of emphasis on promoting free services, medical evaluation and training for basic medical care, available to the majority of the population in the country. If you ask me about the specific behaviors that I would like to see in people, I believe that the health-awareness and basic first aid literacy should be in the focus of the healthcare services in general and Emergency Medical Care Department. These practices are expressed through health-enhancing physical activities appreciation, healthy diet and regular medical check and basic school and university training on provision of first help in emergency situations. In my organizations, marketing and social services department put a lot of efforts in promoting the above activities through internal advertisement campaign, personal interviews with the patients, conducted by social service professionals and regular free-of-charge first care training for the community.
The role of social marketing is extremely important in the development of the above mentioned behaviors, and it is important to remember that the difference between education and social marketing is the measure of success. In education, the role of tutor is to transfer the knowledge, and the responsibility of social marketing is to create behavior patterns. Social marketing activities within the public sector, such as promotion of regular physical exercises, campaigns for creation awareness of breast cancer, negative impact of tobacco and other campaigns, can significantly reduce the need for emergency care and improve public health. The difficulty of the social marketing in the public sector, however, is significant, as it attempts to change comfortable behaviors for less convenient and pleasurable habits. Education will not be able to complete this objective due to lack of focus on cognitive behavior. With that in mind, the role of social marketing is paramount.