Linking innovation with hospital performance: the mediating role of experiential healthcare marketing

BackgroundIn the rapid evolution of the healthcare sector, innovation is recognized as an important factor in hospital performance; however, the mechanisms by which types of innovation translate into performance remain unexplored. Therefore, current study examines the effects of entrepreneurial, technological, and service innovation on hospital performance, with experiential healthcare marketing as a mediator and patient trust as a moderator.MethodsThe data were collected from 340 patients at private hospitals using a self-administered questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was performed for path analysis using SmartPLS, and statistical measures were analyzed using SPSS (25.0).ResultsThe present study results revealed that technological innovation and entrepreneurial innovation increase hospital performance directly and through experiential healthcare marketing. Surprisingly, relationship between service innovation and experiential healthcare marketing is not significant, as service innovation is often process-oriented and focuses on the delivery system, whereas experiential marketing is intrinsically emotional and perception-based; therefore, it may fail to deliver meaningful experiential outcomes. Additionally, moderating effect of patient trust is also not significant, indicating that experiential marketing operates independently in current context.DiscussionThis study underscores a critical gap in digital transformation by proposing an integrative model that explores how innovative drivers affect hospital performance through patient-centered mechanism. This study also examines mediating role of experiential marketing a under research variable in healthcare context.