Public Procurement Assessment in the Healthcare Sector

Public Procurement Assessment in the Healthcare Sector (ProCure) brings together 26 partners from 13 EU countries, including public and private organizations (public buyers, central purchasing bodies, regional health agencies, alliance of private hospitals, vendors, etc.,), as well as other supporting organizations, involved in public purchases made for hospitals, to make a thorough assessment of public procurement practices to manage them more effectively and precisely. ProCure assessment will focus on the impact of pandemic in procurement organizations and practices from the 13 participating MS, but not only. By means of comparison, ProCure will determine what changed in relation to the pre-pandemic scenario and, also, what new strategies, action plans, policies have been incorporated to public procurement as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. The overarching goal is to help leaders gauge and track their state of readiness and identify opportunities for improvement. In addition, this project will broad lessons learnt from previous health crisis to outline new or improved national and regional strategies on public procurement. The final goal will be making current practices more resilient and efficient all over the European Union, and to ensure that public health systems are ready for whatever crises the future brings. ProCure methodology will follow a step-by-step process: - Phase 1-Observational study in which facts and data collected and transformed in information; - Phase 2- Identification and definition of the stakeholders' preferences, their needs and expectations (Delphi method) in which information is converted into knowledge following a scientific approach that distances itself from subjectivity. - Phase 3-Structured dialogue in which the knowledge acquired is the base to determine new strategies for the health procurement systems in order to increase preparedness for future health procurement challenges.