Public-private partnerships in regional hospitals: The case of Clinical Hospital Osijek

This paper presents the possibilities of development for Croatian regional hospitals through Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). The goal is to derive lessons from other countries' experiences in implementation and enforcement of the PPP model for hospitals in order to avoid future mistakes and to present possibilities of the PPP model implementation in Croatian regional hospitals, putting it in the framework of EU accession. The paper will answer questions like are there EU experiences in the PPP model application in hospitals and what are the outcomes; is the PPP model of financing public infrastructure regulated on EU level and how; are there existing preconditions in the Croatian legal system and institutional environment for the enforcement of EU experiences; how can UK's experiences be applied in Croatian regional hospitals, and finally, what needs to be adjusted and regulated in order to create grounds for PPP implementation in regional public hospitals and to avoid future mistakes in Croatia. In order to show that the PPP model of financing public regional hospitals offers possibilities of economic transformation of the health care sector, paper first tried to prove that regional hospitals in Croatia are neglected and the concentration is present in Zagreb. Secondly, the specific geographic layout of Croatia requires the development of regional medical centers where access to public health service is available to patients from the region. Thirdly, in the light of the current situation (large hospitals debts, insufficient financial funds etc.) the PPP model could offer an extra model of financing in order to provide the best quality medical service to citizens. And finally, as a good practice example, the largest PFI hospital scheme in the United Kingdom was analysed and tried to present through opportunities for Clinical Hospital Osijek (CHO) transformation using PFI model of financing.