Correspondence: Harald F. Stock, DePuy Germany — Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, DePuy Orthopaedie GmbH, Konrad-Zuse-Str. 19, Kirkel-Limbach D-66459, Germany. Tel: +49 6841 1893 4; e-mail: kmetzen@its.jnj.com

¹is the Head of the International Competence Center on Marketing and Sales at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, one of the leading global strategy consulting firms. He has worked for many clients in the healthcare and med-tech industries. Björn Bloching holds a master's degree in Industrial Engineering and a PhD in Macroeconomics. In addition, he has been awarded an honorary professorship on branding and marketing.

²is the Chairman and Managing Director of DePuy in Germany, Johnson & Johnson's Orthopaedics franchise. DePuy is a leader in reconstructive arthroplasty, trauma, sports medicine, spinal and neurosurgery. Before joining Johnson & Johnson in 2006, he had spent almost ten years with Roche in various local and global positions of increasing responsibility. He holds a PhD degree in Inorganic Chemistry from the Heidelberg University and serves on the board of BVMed, Germany's Medtech industry association as well as on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Medical Marketing.

³is the founder and General Manager of Insignomed Unternehmensberatung in Freiburg, Germany. After studies of Business Adminstration at the University of Cologne, he held positions as Marketing Manager (Johnson & Johnson) and VP Marketing & Sales (Alcon Laboratories). Since the year 2000, Insignomed Consulting puts through seminars and consulting projects that are all focused on management of hospitals. The core competency is consumer marketing for healthcare services and human resource management/leadership for decision makers in hospitals.

Received 1 September 2008; Revised 1 September 2008; Published online 26 September 2008.

Abstract

Germany's statutory healthcare system is bowing more and more to the principles of the market. This means hospital managers must cope with new challenges. As competition for patients and cases becomes fiercer, hospitals must come up with competitive and distinctive service portfolios — and actively market them. Forward-looking hospital marketing puts the focus squarely on physicians. Hospitals, doctors and patients alike stand to benefit.