Factors Influencing Networkability in the Health Care Sector: Derivation and Empirical Validation

In highly competitive industries, extensive networking characterised by a high division of labour between service providers evolved in the last years. In the health care sector, the first signs of a similar development are beginning to crystallise. A key concept for this is the ability to link up with other players on the basis of commonly agreed standards and services and low setup costs per case in order to jointly provide high-quality health care treatment oriented towards patient benefits. By means of focus group discussions with different stakeholders of healthcare (hospitals, insurance companies, service providers) the main factors leading to an increase in this networkability are identified and validated through an empirical investigation. The results of the investigation serve on the one hand to provide an overview of the areas where action is necessary to increase the networkability of individual players as well as that of the sector as a whole. On the other hand, these results can be used to obtain initial findings as to how health care players can control networkability on a holistic and systematic basis.