Channel systems: an idea whose time has come in health care marketing.

Channel systems is beginning to emerge as a strategy that binds various entities in the delivery for health care, particularly hospitals and physicians. Hospitals are beginning to organize their efforts to help physicians in a channel systems context by focusing on value-added services to doctors that differentiate a hospital from its competitors and bind the doctors to the value-added hospitals. At the same time, doctors are beginning to realize their opportunity to leverage their admissions, purchasing, and patronage power in terms of obtaining value-added benefits and services that can help them compete more effectively in an increasingly aggressive health care marketplace.