Systematic approach to better health
It's a well-known and widespread challenge: Infrastructure investments in the healthcare sector in developing and emerging countries often fail to realize their full potential, and new acquisitions sometimes even go unused. Reasons include, for example, inadequate consideration of compatibility with local conditions during new acquisitions. In addition, there are inadequate operation and maintenance concepts and insufficient user training.
"Systemic tenders" offer significant potential for improvement here, as they firmly embed a systemic project approach or holistic perspective in the project right from the procurement process. In a systemic tender—and thus a tender for functional units or systems based on functional or performance criteria—the focus is on the system change necessary for the success of a complex infrastructure investment. This means that the entire operational process of the affected unit or facility is considered.
The focus is on the extent to which operational processes can be restructured to ensure optimal use of the new technical acquisition and smooth overall operation, what human and financial resources are required, and how these can be generated sustainably. Such an approach raises awareness of the extent and significance of the necessary reforms and thus has considerable potential to sustainably influence an existing work culture. This ultimately leads to improvements in the quality of treatment and to optimizing the benefits of the new acquisition at the patient level.
To tap the potential of systemic tenders in German development cooperation (DC), the German Healthcare Partnership (GHP, since July 2019: GHA – German Health Alliance) launched the "Dialogue on Systemic Tenders in the Health Sector" initiative at the beginning of 2012. This study, commissioned as part of this initiative, addresses specific issues of technical cooperation (TC).
