Healthcare innovation
The Olympic Village is to be part of a new innovative administrative structure envisaged in a draft bill on health. In what constitutes the first step toward the involvement of insurance companies in hospitals, the Olympic Village Clinic will become a societe anonyme, with insurance funds as the shareholders. The same organizational framework will eventually be implemented at other hospitals, according to recent statements by Health Minister Nikitas Kaklamanis. Health market sources believe that the funds’ investment in the clinic will be profitable as the clinic specializes in physical health and rehabilitation, which have good growth prospects in Greece. This will enable the funds to offer health packages as options to the people insured with them. The draft bill establishes a societe anonyme called Clinics SA (AEMY SA) which would belong to the Greek state. AEMY will be under the supervision of the state as exercised by the Health Ministry, and its primary objective will be to utilize the Olympic Village Clinic. The company’s share capital is set at 10 million euros, divided into 100 shares to be held by the Health Ministry. But the ministry has the right to transfer up to 49 percent of the shares to agencies and enterprises in the public sector, particularly to social insurance organizations. The ministry has already held discussions with funds on the subject. The general assembly of AEMY will comprise the company’s shareholders and will have the same responsibilities as a private enterprise company. The 11-member board of management serves a two-year term and will formulate the company’s strategy and development policy and oversee the management of its assets. The new model is «promising, given that for the first time it provides for an alliance between the state and insurance funds in the joint management of hospitals,» Yiannis Kyriopoulos, professor of health economics at the National Public Health School, told Kathimerini. He thinks it may lead, at later stages, to different «menus» of services being offered by the funds to their clients, without that changing the public nature of the healthcare.
