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Healthcare Matching solutions for the healthcare industry. |
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The new healthcare landscape
Healthcare
reforms are leading towards a market-oriented approach where
identification of a patient need releases a fund with which to address
that need. It will then be up
to the patient, in partnership with his or her GP, to purchase the
appropriate healthcare services in the marketplace.
Whether these are supplied by the National Health Service,
semi-independent However,
for a market to work successfully, information must flow. It
is no use offering patient choice if the patient is unable to find out
about the options and alternatives available.
Traditional markets, involving a physical gathering of buyers and
sellers at a single location, cannot solve this problem.
What is needed is a virtual marketplace, managed by information
technology, to put the information into the hands of the patient and his
or her GP. An electronic market for healthcare resources Electronic
marketplaces flourished briefly during the dot com boom of the 1990s, and
some commodity market places are still highly successful.
Most are centred around auction mechanisms, which work well to
resolve supply and demand for homogeneous commodities, where price is the
main distinguishing feature. Healthcare
services are not homogeneous – there are often alternative ways of
addressing clinical need, and geographical location can play an important
part in determining the suitability of an option.
An elderly or seriously ill patient may not wish or be able to
travel a long distance for an operation.
Others may have no problem with this, perhaps even preferring to
travel some distance in exchange for quicker treatment.
Supply of healthcare resources is also more complex than that of
commodities. A service may
consist of multiple services – a hospital bed, surgeon, anaesthetist,
operating theatre, post-operative care facilities – all of which may or
may not be available on the dates they are required. Dynamic solution composition with Matching Systems A virtual market created with Matching Systems facilitates:
© Matching Systems 2007 Ltd., July 2007 |
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