Health care executives and their patients. How do they keep in touch

Abstract

In their offices at the end of long and silent corridors, executives usually do not meet patients. Either they walk through their organisation in the same anonymous way as their patients or they are known as the ‘executive’ and kept at a distance because of their status. Questions arise: do we know something about the number and the type of contacts health care executives and patients actually have? How does the executive, in an environment of growing distance, stay in touch (to speak in marketing terms) with their ‘ product’ and their ‘clients’? Where do they meet?