Abstract
The purpose of this study was to measure the competition level of general hospitals in Poland. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) was used to investigate the concentration level of the general hospital sector in Poland, which is treated in the literature as a proxy of competition. To understand how general hospitals’ market has been structured and thus competitive, the data for general hospitals spanning all Poland for the period of 2005-2013 were collected. The concentration of hospitals was measured in each of the 16 provinces in Poland based on the aggregated data at the counties level. Data are collected from the public statistical system. The HHI indices support the assertion that in the period of analysis the entire general hospitals’ sector in Poland has been on average moderately concentrated and thus, moderately competitive with the growing tendency to higher concentration and less competition. Moreover, the concentration of hospitals’ services is diversified across the provinces and regions of Poland and it is quite uneven. The analysis also shows that changes in the health care market, which took place in the analysed period, especially statutory changes regarding hospitals in 2011, affected the level of concentration and thus competition. Including this introduction, this paper is organized into six sections. Section 2 outlines the Polish health care reforms especially those applying to hospitals. Section 3 and 4 presents the concept of empirical research, such as data and method. Section 5 provides results of empirical research and section 6 concludes.
Highlights
Most of the industrialized countries have been developing their health care systems continuously in purpose to improve their effectiveness, fairness and quality of health care (Rój, 2009)
As competition is increasingly more important for analysis of health care markets and policies, with hospitals being the largest part of health care systems in every developed country – the purpose of this article is to analyse the competition among hospitals in Poland
The concentration of hospitals services is diversified across the provinces of Poland and is quite uneven
Summary
Most of the industrialized countries have been developing their health care systems continuously in purpose to improve their effectiveness, fairness and quality of health care (Rój, 2009). One of the main roles of competition in health care is the potential to provide a mechanism for reducing health care costs. It ensures the provision of better services to satisfy the needs of patients (Rivers, Glover, 2008). The increased competition and the significant implications on costs and prices, as well as quality of health care services, resulted in health care industries merging and acquiring other hospitals. This may result in dominance of a few hospitals on the health care markets (Boutsioli, 2007)
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