Law 9/2017 governing public-sector contracts should contemplate the specifics of the healthcare sector in order to ensure the effective procurement of healthtech for hospitals and health centers, according to attendees at the 29th Annual Healthtech Conference held in Madrid by Fenin (Spain’s federation of healthtech companies) in conjunction with the academic establishment Esade. 

The conference was opened by the Health Minister José Manuel Miñones, who emphasized that for his ministry and the SNS (Spain’s national health system), “healthtech is a cornerstone, requiring work on how healthcare products can be incorporated into the system efficiently”. Miñones mentioned some projects under way, such as the INVEAT scheme, the SNS digitalization strategy and the implementation of the Genomics Portfolio, as ventures that focus on healthtech investment and enable its full potential to be realized”. In this respect, Miñones thanked Fenin for their “collaboration and know-how” in furthering these projects.

This conference, entitled ‘Key factors of healthtech and its procurement’, gathered together representatives of public authorities, healthcare managers and executives in this industry involved in this area to analyze the way in which the public procurement of medical equipment and products should ensure and enhance the quality of healthcare attention and facilitate fair and easy access to innovation. During the conference, with a view to this goal, new benchmark instruments available to managers were addressed, such as the ‘Guide to Efficient Public Healthtech Procurement’. Recent legislation directly related to this field was dissected too, such as Law 11/2013 which paves the way for index-linked healthtech procurement contracts and thereby ensures their financial viability, and also current procurement trends, more engaged with environmental and societal issues.

“Legislation governing public-sector procurement should encompass the reality and complexity of the healthcare sector, and thus increase the efficiency of healthcare procurement whilst improving access to tech innovation. Public-private collaboration is the only way to overcome the complex socio-economic landscape and the challenges of procurement and develop mechanisms for the procurement of healthcare services that are effective, efficient and, of course, sustainable”, said Fenin President Jorge Huertas. 

Manel Peiró, Director of the Esade Institute for Healthcare Management, explained that “the healthcare sector has faced major challenges in recent years: increased demand for healthcare services and insufficient resources provided by the authorities. The general paradigm of the value-based approach to healthcare enables new procurement methods that facilitate the access to new developments in diagnostic and therapeutic fields”.

The ‘Guide to Efficient Public Healthtech Procurement’, published by Fenin last January and presented to the audience during the 29th conference of this sector, is regarded as a useful, practical instrument in response to the need for explanations about healthtech procurement matters, thereby optimizing such procedures. In one of the panel discussions during the conference about the effective public procurement of healthtech, managers from public-sector hospitals expressed their appreciation for this guide and its recommendations which combine legal and other considerations enabling the best practices to be understood and applied nationwide.

Index-linked pricing for contractual viability 

In addition to the guide, another major development that could optimize the public procurement of healthtech in the short term has emerged in legislation, in Law 11/2023 to be precise, which allows public-sector contracts for goods and services to be increased or reduced in price. This law was also analyzed in this conference. 

It must be said that Fenin has been campaigning for index-linked prices for some time now, particularly in today’s geopolitical and economic landscape marked by supply-chain problems and an unprecedented increase in production and logistic costs and has finally been vindicated. “Our industry and others have been heard. This is great news and an excellent first step, but we must address the complex implementation of this measure. A long road lies ahead, and we must continue to work with the authorities, as we have done until now, to ensure its successful application”, said Fenin President Jorge Huertas.

Likewise, Omar Rachedi, associate professor in the Esade department of economics, finance and accounting, during the talk entitled ‘Economic landscape and conditions for the health sector', emphasized present-day uncertainty, a “considerable burden” for the healthtech industry because procurement contracts signed with healthcare departments are usually very long-term (several years long). “With a suitable approach, indexing public contracts to fluctuations in the price of raw materials could create a more stable and predictable framework for healthtech companies, reduce uncertainty and foster sustainable growth in this sector”, pointed out Professor Rachedi.

Social and environmental responsibility: increasingly important in public procurement 

Effective healthtech procurement must be value-based in order to ensure better health outcomes, according to the speakers. Therefore, tenders based on strictly economic criteria should be avoided, whilst criteria regarding the quality of the goods/services supplied, and factors such as environmental and social sustainability should be taken into account. 

In this respect, the contribution made by healthcare products and services to the environment and society is of increasing importance in procurement processes. The representatives of the authorities, and also the managers and experts attending, agreed that support for these factors is a trend “that should be encouraged” because it enables more efficient environmental solutions to be adopted, and is in line with EU aims regarding strategic public procurement designed to ensure citizens’ access to high-quality goods and services whilst complying with EU sustainability goals regarding the environmental, society and innovation. The carbon footprint, the water footprint, and, in general, indicators related to the product life cycle are some of the parameters mentioned by the experts that should be taken into account with a view to incorporating more environmentally efficient solutions into the system.

In addition to its scientific program, this 29th Conference of the Healthtech Industry also hosted the presentation of Fenin’s Premios Voluntades by their general secretary, Margarita Alfonsel. These awards, now in their 12th edition, enshrine the federation’s long-standing aim of acknowledging the engagement of social and healthcare entities with society though their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.