Okay here comes the heresy. Got your pitchforks at the ready?
Competition between suppliers can reduce quality of their products, increase inefficiencies, and therefore drive up prices.
Before you call me a commie and ban me from America, this is the conclusion of this article in the Harvard Business Review. And they’re not talking about selling products, it’s about delivering services.
Specifically healthcare services.
We know that we’ve got a healthcare landscape of rising costs and inconsistent quality. That’s the problem this article addresses.
For the solution, they want to basically think of it like a large corporation would. Collaboration within a company and across its divisions can lead to better overall performance, higher quality, and lower costs. The idea is, why not apply that same mentality across a network of hospitals.
They are Harvard, so they’ve done their research and have some strong case studies showing how this can work in theory, and how it does work in practice.
When disparate systems to work together and increase transparency between them, it actually helps each of them deliver better care, and increasing efficiencies.
Collaboration, not competition.
