Publication: The Corporatization of Public Hospitals
Date
2000-09
ISSN
Published
2000-09
Author(s)
Harding, April
Preker, Alexander S.
Abstract
Heavy investment over the past 30 years
has made the hospital sector the largest expenditure
category of the health system in most developed and
developing countries. Despite shifts in attention and
emphasis toward primary care as a first point of contact for
patients, in most countries, hospitals remain a critical
link to health care, providing both advanced and basic care
for the population. Often, they are the provider "of
last resort" for the poor and critically ill. Although
it is clear that hospitals play a critical role in ensuring
delivery of health services, there is much less agreement
about how to improve the efficiency and quality of care
provided. With increasing frequency, hospital autonomy,
corporatization, and even privatization, are being
considered and applied to improve performance of publicly
run health services. The objective of this publication is to
yield some insights about these popular reform modalities
from a review of the literature, reform experiences in other
sectors and empirical evidence from hospital sector itself.
The review examines: (a) what problems these reforms are
attempting to address; b) the core elements of the reforms;
and, c) why they are structured the way they are (why their
designers think they will resolve certain problems)? While
this paper focuses on issues related to the design of the
reforms, the paper also reports the findings from a larger
study that examined the implementation and evaluation of
such reforms so that they will be available to countries
that are considering venturing down this reform path.
Citation
“Harding, April; Preker, Alexander S.. 2000. The Corporatization of Public Hospitals. HNP discussion paper series;. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/153485b2-25f0-5d2e-bac8-8a7d92bac965 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”