Public and private partnerships in the hospital sector – New challenges for Portugal

In a changing scenario in the hospital sector, facing pressures from many sides, like government budget constraints, patients demanding higher level of service quality and internal stakeholders (like doctors and nurses) trying to impose its power, the European Commission is supporting, with the help of Portuguese government, a new type of management in public hospitals: public and private partnership (henceforth PPP). These partnerships are not new in Europe, nevertheless in hospital sector are rare. In Portugal, Hospital Fernando da Fonseca is the unique experience similar with the PPP management, but unfortunately the data related with this experience are not enough to guarantee success to this type of management. But the government intends to launch ten new PPP hospital projects, which it will demand special efforts in terms of developing new tools to monitor the performance of the new projects. Beyond the preliminary advantages and disadvantages of the PPP, it is important to keep a special focus in key variables related with hospital sector, such as: patients, technology, taxpayers and government, and also internal stakeholders. Future research it will be necessary to evaluate the success or failure of the new PPP hospitalN/