The role of Marketing Communications in the sustainability of National Health Insurance in Ghana

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Date
July, 2015
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Abstract
Ghana’s health care financing has seen a number of reforms over the years. Many Ghanaians have come to realize that high-quality health is important to human welfare as well as sustained economic and social developments. The emergence of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2003 was to provide an alternative to the Cash and Carry system and also provision of social health insurance to the poor and other disadvantaged population by enhancing monetary access to quality health services. The sustainability of the NHIS has become a great concern to many residents in Ghana. The study was undertaken to assess the role of Marketing Communications in the Sustainability of National Health Insurance in Ghana with the Sekyere East District office of the NHIS as the case study company. The research sought to assess marketing communication activities being undertaken by the scheme, the level of stakeholder engagement and ultimately the role marketing communication plays in ensuring the NHIS remained sustainable. Questionnaires were dispensed to 19 staff of Sekyere East Office of NHIA and 370 subscribers of the NHIS. SPSS Software and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data collected. It was revealed that the staff thought communicating through advertising was more reliable whereas the subscribers thought word of mouth was more reliable. The results also showed among other things that the NHIS predominantly used public relations and advertisement more than the other forms of marketing communications. Both staff respondents of the NHIS and the subscribers conceded that interaction between the between them was not well enough. The staff and the subscribers agreed that to sustain the scheme, marketing communication activities should be focused on the benefits of the NHIS and what the client stands to gain for being members of the scheme. It is recommended among other things that management should also invest in other marketing communications tools such as personal selling to reinforce the efforts of the public relations and advertisement. Management was also entreated to carefully plan word of mouth communication in a way that will project a positive picture of the scheme. It is also recommended that communications message should put fear or guilt into people in order to reduce incidence of abuse of the scheme in a bid to sustain the scheme.
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A Thesis submitted to the Department of Marketing and Corporate Strategy, College of Art and Social Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration (Marketing),
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