PERSPECTIVES FOR COMPETITION IN THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Authors: Velkov Yuliyan 
Published: September 2019

A paradox has been established in the modern healthcare industry - consumers can choose between many alternatives but with high uncertainty, while healthcare establishments have numerous possibilities, but they function in conditions of rigorous demand, globalization and large-scale technological efficiency. This requires a re-evaluation of the classical understanding of competition in value creation - healthcare effects (for patients) and financial gains (for the performance of medical and related activities). Today, competition can be explained as a competition for the creation, supply and realization of healthcare products and related services and goods. It is a dynamic process of competition and, in a more general sense, interaction between competing subjects under conditions of significant state interference. It reflects the modern perceptions of health, the improvement of biotechnology and pharmacy, the changed role of the patients - more and more informed, educated, active and united in thematic groups. For the realization with a focus on personal patient preferences, this embodies the characteristics of the interaction between the healthcare establishment and the patient. Competition integrates business logic and patient thinking. In the context of the concept of joint value creation, it covers the intense interactions between healthcare institutions and the individual. Competition in the healthcare industry is based on dialogue, access, risk assessment and transparency at every stage of value creation and realization. This is realized as a competitive interaction in the environment (network) from the influences of healthcare institutions and other producers of medical and non-medical services and goods, thematic associations and regulations. This is a rivalry in creating and offering healthcare products tailored to individual patient's views, preferences, expectations and financial capabilities. The prospects for a competitive race are a transition from competitiveness to competitive interaction. In parallel with the improvement of the operational efficiency of the medical institution, this imposes, the increasing individualization of the created healthcare products. This requires the development of an environment for shared healthcare experiences with the customer. Thus, the development of competition is connected with the realization of the competitive potential of the healthcare establishment through the prism of patient choice - joint creation of healthcare experience through many channels, through options, through transactions and at an appropriate price-to-experience ratio. Consequently, the competitiveness targeting passive patients in need of treatment is shifted from an effective healthcare establishment-to-patient interaction in order to jointly provide patient satisfaction. Competition is a race between dependant healthcare establishments; it is a rivalry between producers of healthcare effects interacting with patients among many environmental influences. Contemporary competition in the healthcare industry is a mechanism for jointly creating healthcare effects by interaction between a healthcare establishment and a patient with the active role of those in need of treatment. This is realized in the form of competition and co-operation in the course of the creation of individualized healthcare experiences. Competition combines a variety of subjective patient needs, medicinal product characteristics, and network experience qualities. As a guideline for improving competition, we can point to enhancing the quality of the environment, enhancing the possibility to take into account patient need heterogeneity, increasing adaptability to changes in demand, and enhancing capabilities to mobilize all potential competencies.