The Viewpoints of Managers about Advantages, Disadvantages and Barriers in Health Care Outsourcing in Isfahan

Outsourcing in health care sector is a cost-effective strategy that can lead to increased quality of services provided to patients. The aim of this study was to determine the types of outsourced services in educational hospitals in Isfahan and to investigate the viewpoints of managers about the impact of outsourcing. This descriptive survey was carried out in 2010. Research population was all senior managers of educational hospitals and the Treatment Deputy of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (n = 60). Data collection tool was a checklist and a questionnaire about factors related to outsourcing. The reliability and validity of the checklist and questionnaire have been confirmed (a = 0.80). Data is analyzed with SPSS18 software. Among the treatment-paraclinical items, inpatient wards, physiotherapy, radiology and ultrasound had the highest rates of outsourcing (33%). Among non-medical services, housekeeping and facility engineering maintenance had the largest rates of outsourced units (100%). Of 60 managers, 53 agreed to answer the questionnaire (response rate = 88%). In manager's view, paying more attention to internal and external customers in private sector (57.2%) was the most important advantage of outsourcing. However, increased costs increase for patients (45.6%) was the most important disadvantage. Moreover, they considered forgetting the goal of outsourcing (efficiency) (60.6%) as the main barrier. Overall, managers thought outsourcing in health services organizations as rather acceptable. However, they also believed the barriers in implementation of outsourcing needed to be removed first. Fundamental infrastructure developments such as making competing market, promoting outsourcing-related culture, education, modifying the attitudes of managers and establishing incentive policies are required for successful implementation of outsourcing.