Designing a Model of Competition in Iranian Public Hospital Services

Hospital services are a complex set of products and services. Introduction of market mechanisms requires that governments pay attention to structural conditions in the market and competition among suppliers. The impact of the introduction of competition depends on many factors; and the social mores govern the provision and demand for health care. Present research was aimed to develop a model by which the Iranian public hospitals can easily compete with each other.

This is an applied research with descriptive-comparative and sectional method. Based on the findings of the comparative study in the selected countries, the researcher designed and tested a final model using the Delphi technique. The validity and the reliability of the research instruments were determined using experts feedbacks and test-retest procedures. Based on the questionnaire, considering the required information, the data were collected.

Governments pay more than 85% of inpatient costs in the studied countries. An average of, 3.3% of GDP is expended for inpatients of which 85.3% accounts on inpatients in public hospitals. Competition mechanisms have helped limiting and controlling costs, improving efficiency, promoting effectiveness, as well as saving capital investment by governments, particularly in hospital sectors.

One may be expected that the government ensure a function of common interest, considerably increases the quality of services, the productivity of available resources, and the customer satisfaction by providing market-oriented mechanisms, supervising and controlling the provision of hospital services via intermediaries.