Evaluation of selected determinants of public procurement in the health sector

Abstract

This article aims at anexaminationof the impact of the number of public procurement tenders in the healthcare sector on the final purchase price. We used the data from 1544 public contracts related to the acquisition of health technologies for the years 2014-2017. The highest number of public contracts was reached at level of 501 in 2014, and the lowest number was 238 in 2017. The highest average value of estimated and final prices was found in 2015. The proportion of tenders submitted with only one tenderer was over 39 %. For the analysis, we used a generalized linear model and quantile regression. The results showed that, as the number of bids increased by one unit, the ratio of final and projected price on average would change 0.975 times, which means an increase in savings by 2.45%. Using quantile regression, we modelled the influenceof the explanatory variables on the individual quantiles of the explained variable instead of the conditional mean. The aim was to determine the impact of the number of proposals at everyovercharge level. As the order value of the quantile increases, the effect of offers on generating savings in public procurement is gradually decreasing. For more than 40 % of the most overpriced orders, the number of offers does not have a statistically significant effect on the size of the savings. With 25 % of the most economical orders with an increasing number of bids by one unit, savings of 4.77 % were achieved. However, increasing the number of procurement contracts to create savings in public procurement may develop differently over time. By applying the generalized linear model, we found that in 2014 the increase in the number of offers by one unit had an impact on the average increase in public procurement savings of 7.15 %. In 2015, this impact fell to 1.59 %. In 2016, the growth in the number of proposals did not have a statistically significant impact on the average increase or decrease in savings. In 2017, this value increased slightly above 1.96 %. Public acquisition processes will continue to be a critical pointfor the efficient allocation of public resources. © 2020, Bucharest University of Economic Studies Publishing House. All rights reserved.