Healthcare, Quality Concerns and Competition Law

Theodosia Stavroulaki is Assistant Professor of Law at Gonzaga University School of Law, USA.

• 1. Setting the Scene: What is Healthcare Quality? I. How is Healthcare Quality DefinedII. Deconstructing the Notion: What are the Main Dimensions of Healthcare Quality? III. Choosing the Core Dimensions of Healthcare Quality: Why is it Essential? IV. Levels of Analysis in the Concept of Quality V. How is Healthcare Quality Measured? VI. Structure, Process and Outcome: When to Use What? VII. Summing Up 2. Introducing Competition in Healthcare: What are the Risks to Healthcare Quality? I. Towards the Marketisation of EU Health Systems: What is the Rationale Behind this Trend? II. Is the Market for Healthcare Special? III. Applying Competition Law with a View to Protecting Healthcare Quality: What are the Challenges? IV. Summing Up 3. The Market Approach: Part I I. Professionalism versus Antitrust: What is the Debate About? II. Do the US Antitrust Enforcers and the Courts Take into Account Healthcare Quality? III. Do the US Antitrust Enforcers and the Courts Balance Conflicts Between Different Quality Perspectives? IV. Summing Up 4. The Market Approach: Part II I. How are Hospitals Paid? A Historical Perspective II. Hospital Merger Analysis: A Short Journey to the Applicable Competition Framework III. Quality in the US Hospital Merger Analysis IV. Incorporating Healthcare Quality Claims into a Merger Analysis: A Mission Impossible? V. Summing Up5. The Holistic Approach I. Health Systems in Europe: What are their Common Values and Objectives? II. Conflicts between the Goals of Competition and the Multiple Facets of Healthcare Quality: Reflections on the English Health System III. Protecting Healthcare Quality under EU Competition Law IV. How can Healthcare Quality be Evaluated as a Whole? V. Summing Up6. The Regulatory Approach I. An Introduction to the Main Facets of the HSCA 2012: How Does this Framework Force Hospitals to Merge? II. How and to What Extent Does the CMA Integrate Quality Concerns in the Context of NHS Mergers?III. Evaluating the CMA’s Approach as a Whole: What are the Aspects of Quality the CMA Considers in its Merger Assessment? IV. Summing Up7. Reflections I. The Book’s Core Findings II. Integrating Healthcare Quality as a Whole: Mission Impossible? III. Looking Towards the Future: Antitrust in the Era of Data Driven Mergers in the Healthcare Field

Professor Stavroulaki’s book is sophisticated and well done … This interdisciplinary and comparative perspective is important in analysing to what extent the UK and EU should follow the US approach, as all three jurisdictions seek to inject more market competition into their existing healthcare systems.