ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1652798
This article is part of the Research TopicChanging Healthcare through Innovation in Clinical Management and Healthcare Policy Strategies: Focus on Quality Improvement for the PatientView all articles
Impact on healthcare and operational outcomes of outsourcing to a private valuebased provider: analysis of tertiary hospitals in the Community of Madrid
Provisionally accepted
- 1Quirónsalud Healthcare Network, Madrid, Spain
- 2Hospital Universitario Fundacion Jimenez Diaz, Madrid, Spain
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The outsourcing to private healthcare providers is a topic of intense debate and with contradictory results published in the literature. In this study, we aimed to analyze the effects of outsourcing to a private provider that follows a value-based model on official indicators of quality, functioning and accessibility, safety, and patient experience recently published by the Madrid regional health system for the year 2023. Notably, we found that the study hospital showed lower mortality rates, surgical and medical complications, and hospital-acquired infections than its peers. Moreover, the study hospital had significantly shorter length of stay and surgical backlog, highlighting its high levels of functioning and accessibility. Regarding patient satisfaction with the care received, the study hospital showed a significantly higher satisfaction index than the control group. Accordingly, the indicator of free choice of medical care available in the Community of Madrid showed that it was a net importer of patients from other tertiary hospitals included in this study. Altogether, our findings support the idea that outsourcing to value-based healthcare providers represents a valid alternative that does not compromise the overall quality of healthcare offered to patients. On the contrary, this strategy could not only improve indicators but also reveal potential initiatives that will contribute to improving outcomes in public hospitals, creating a positive synergistic loop.
Keywords: Healthcare quality, Healthcare efficiency, Patient Safety, patient experience, outsourcing, value-based healthcare
Received: 24 Jun 2025; Accepted: 12 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Caramés, Arcos, Pfang, Cristóbal and Álvaro. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ion Cristóbal, Quirónsalud Healthcare Network, Madrid, Spain
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