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Four major hospitals in the Randstad conurbation collaborate
13th May 2009, 7:30 | FD.nl  

By: Jeroen Piersma

Four major hospitals in the Randstad conurbation are going to collaborate in a cooperation arrangement. These are the Medisch Centrum Haaglanden (Haaglanden Medical Centre) and the Bronovo Hospital in The Hague, the Lange Land Hospital in Zoetermeer and the Groene Hart Hospital in Gouda.  

Together, these four claim to handle some 7 to 10% of the Dutch hospital market. In the South Holland region, the market share comes to as much as 20 to 30%.  

This is the second time this year that a healthcare cooperation arrangement has been set up. At the start of this year it was announced that the Vlietland Hospital, the insurer DSW and a number of Schiedam healthcare concerns had organised a cooperation arrangement. In 2008, ten of the institutions involved in care for the disabled and the elderly joined the Zorgcoöperatie Nederland (Dutch Healthcare Cooperative). What is more, the health sector has had its purchasing cooperation arrangement Intrakoop for much longer.  

Hospitals definitely did not want to merge  
The four hospitals have been talking to each other about collaboration since 2006 but they definitely did not want to merge. “Merger involves too much trouble and effort,” says Willem Geerlings, Chairman of the Board of Haaglanden Medical Centre and also the Chairman of the new cooperative’s board. “In a merger, everyone has to get on with everyone else. Then you sit around for days with specialists who want absolutely nothing to do with each other. You must take your direction from what must be as a result of the outside world and what can be as a result of the inside world.”  

These four hospitals are members of the cooperation arrangement and have a joint board but they continue to operate independently in the market. Apart from the fact that the four insist on their own identities, the cooperative form also has the advantage that their collaboration is easier to get past the NMa (Dutch Competition Authority). A merger would have encountered problems because the four have a strong position in their region.