ZBC’s versus reguliere zorg

Competition in healthcare markets is controversial, as financial interests may negatively influence patient interests. In The Netherlands, public healthcare quality indicators are published annually, but no comparisons are made between hospitals and private healthcare facilities (PHF) operating in the Dutch healthcare market. Just nine such indicators could be compared, demonstrating an overall equivalence of success and complication rates. It is known that PHFs treat healthier patients, and as such their quality of care may in fact be lower. However, without casemix information, no conclusions on healthcare quality can be drawn from the Dutch experiment with regulated competition in the healthcare market. This lack of full, transparent information is a cause of market failure, but can be improved by implementing quality comparisons using routinely collected casemix variables.

Conflict of interest and financial support: none declared.