Contracting-out and Urban Politics: A Case Study on Tainan Municipal Hospital
Author: Chin-Cher Chen
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
This paper aims to analyze the influence of urban politics on public-private collaboration in local public hospital contracting-out carried out by the Tainan Municipal Hospital. The case study is adopted as the method to collect empirical data for this study. Based on the in-depth interviews, interpellation documents from the Tainan Municipal Council and related news reports, this study provides the opportunity to look at the characteristics of local public hospital contracting-out to consider a solution to the problems urban governance. The findings of this study are as follows: contracting-out is part of a wider political process; hospital leadership exerts an important influence in this case of local public hospital contracting-out; hospital contracting-out supports the urban health network and helps supply better and accessible medical services for the community; and public-private collaboration has transformed from its original partnership relationship to a model based on performance measurement and contracting-out.