title: The need for competitive intelligence.
abstract: Often associated with marketing warfare, competitive intelligence has become an essential part of health-care organizations' strategic planning efforts. Without overstepping ethical boundaries, providers can gather a vast array of "intelligence" about their competition from public sources, from the marketplace and from competitors themselves.
mesh_terms: D004465:Economic Competition; D004467:Economics; D006752:Hospital Planning; D007255:Information Services; D008389:Marketing of Health Services / Q000379:methods*; D010934:Planning Techniques; D014481:United States