Future of Sharing Economy in Medicine in Croatia
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FUTURE OF SHARING ECONOMY IN MEDICINE IN CROATIA Terezija BerlančIć J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Medicine Osijek E-mail: [email protected] Ivan Miškulin, Ph. D. J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Medicine Osijek E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Sharing economy (SE) is a new fast-growing economy model and the biggest economy trend of all time. It is based on peer to peer sharing of goods and services and as opposed to previous ownership-based economy it puts focus on the accessibility of a good or service instead of ownership. One of the principles in SE is that unused value is wasted value, therefore, it makes use of unused equipment or possessions and it is estimated that there is over £3,5 trillion worth of unused goods in the world. SE differentiates itself from the classical economy in that it doesn’t have a common hierarchy where one side is the provider of the service and the other is the consumer, in SE everyone can be a provider and a consumer of service at the same time. In the last couple of years, SE has grown in a number of users, companies, start-ups and different fields in FUTURE OF SHARING ECONOMY IN MEDICINE CROATIA which SE has taken the lead. In the past, there have been several attempts of introducing SE in the health profession and some (i.e. COHEALO) were more successful than the others. Health and health services are one of the biggest problems in the world as well as in Croatia. There is a current lack of medi- cal staff in all medical fields and medical devices are very expensive to own. Therefore, there is a need for reduction of medical expenses. In this paper we will analyze the possibility of implementing SE in everyday work in hospitals and other health centers as well as possible places of its implementation and Terezija Berlančić • Ivan Miškulin: Terezija 1758 how could it be used in the near future. SE in medicine will be regarded from a professional, financial, legal, and cultural perspective in Croatia. Keywords: sharing economy, medicine, public health, management JEL Classification: I18, M19 1. INTRODUCTION Sharing economy (SE) is a trend that has taken the world economy by a storm in recent years. It came into the public eye as a result of the success of various companies such as Airbnb and Uber. Even though it is a relatively new trend the concept of sharing, collaborative or peer-to-peer economy exists, in its primitive form, since the beginning of mankind. SE in a way deletes the past strict wall between the producer and the consumer and creates a market where everyone can be a producer and a consumer of the goods and services at the same time. SE has developed in the last fifteen years because increasingly people find that there are some things that they do not need to own to enjoy them, such as vehicles, accommodation and so on. It is a reaction to the ever-growing tech- nological industry and smart tech that allows people to have all of those things just a call or a message away in the palm of their hand. True evidence of SE popularity is the fact that in 2017. The value of SE economy has grown to $2 trillion (BofAML, BIA/Kelsey, 2017). Sharing economy today can be divided into 4 different subgroups: access economy, gig economy, collaborative economy and commoning economy (Ferrer, 2017). There are subtle differences in each subgroup. Access economy refers to access to goods and services through rent- ing them for a period of time and it is not based on ownership of said goods and services. The pivotal part of the access economy is that ownership doesn’t mat- ter just the access to the goods. The gig economy is based on sporadic gigs where the transaction is done through the digital market. The collaborative economy as a subgroup of SE is known as economy inter pares and is more widely known as a peer-to-peer economy. This economy is based on the principle that its own customers help develop the economic activity of said company by participating in the process of developing and designing the production of assets. Finally, we have a commoning economy. “Commoning” is a word developed and popular- ized by the writer Peter Linebaugh and he described it in his book The Magna Carta Manifesto as a word that means people living in close connection to the common people and life. Therefore, the commoning economy means that there INTERDISCIPLINARY MANAGEMENT RESEARCH XV 1759 is a growing need for cooperation in place of competition and that economic growth and market should serve the community. Sharing economy today is a melting pot of all four subgroups and today it gives the opportunity to everyone to develop their business in a different and modern way. Sharing economy is a way to use unused goods and resources that go to waste each year. The aim of this paper is to show the past and present usage of sharing econ- omy in health-related businesses and to propose SE business models that have the potential of developing in Croatian healthcare. 2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Today, the key question is how to redesign health care systems without dam- aging the foundations these were built on. Research has shown that the costs of financing health care will further increase in the near future. Around one-third of this increase will be the consequence of an aging population, and the remain- ing two thirds will refer to the excessive growth of costs, reflecting thus tech- nological changes, income growth, and health policies. It is necessary to point out that the increase in health costs occurs at a time when countries need to undertake significant fiscal adjustments to reduce public debt and state budget deficit in the light of the global financial crisis. The key challenges and problems of Croatian health care can be divided into three groups: functioning of health care systems, health care personnel, and ex- ternal factors. Research has shown that key challenges related to the functioning of health care are inefficiency, financial unviability, inadequate infrastructure, and the lack of system transparency. Poor governance is another limiting factor. With regard to health care personnel, they face the problems of low salaries, which then lead to migration challenges and a potential shortage of health care personnel. The following external factors are deemed to be among the most sig- FUTURE OF SHARING ECONOMY IN MEDICINE CROATIA nificant challenges: an aging population, bad living habits, and an increase in the number of chronic diseases. However, problems caused by the global financial crisis and the consequential macroeconomic situation must not be neglected. Following the above-explained complex situation of Croatian health care system, the authors are proposing the SE model a solution for reducing the inefficiency and financial unviability of the Croatian health care system. Terezija Berlančić • Ivan Miškulin: Terezija 1760 In the course of the research, a considerable number of scientific methods was used, among which the following should be highlighted: the method of de- duction, the method of analysis and synthesis, the method of causal inference, the method of abstraction, the method of composition, the method of analogy, the historical method as well as the method of descriptive inference. 3. SHARING ECONOMY IN DIFFERENT BUSSINES ENVIRONMENT 3.1. Sharing economy sectors According to the report by the European Commission, we can divide the sharing economy into five key sectors (Vaughan & Daverio, 2016): 1. Peer-to-peer accommodation: households sharing access to unused space in their home or renting out a holiday home to travelers through digital platforms. Some of the platforms include Airbnb, LoveHome- Swap and HomeAway. 2. Peer-to-peer transportation: individuals sharing a ride, car or parking space with others through an app. This includes short-distance and long-distance rides as well as car sharing networks. Platforms in trans- portation are Uber, Blablacar, GetAround, Zipcar and so on. 3. On-demand household services: freelancer marketplaces enabling households to access on-demand support with household tasks such as food delivery and “Do It Yourself ”, they are online “crowd-based” mar- ketplaces which give access to household task services and deliveries. They include specialized and general delivery services and on-demand household chores platforms like UberRUSH, Instacart, TaskRabbit and Deliverooo. 4. On-demand professional services: freelancer marketplaces enabling businesses to access on-demand support with skills such as administra- tion, consultancy, and accountancy. This differs from the previous sec- tors since freelancers usually work remotely. Business’ included in this sector are Upwork and HolterWatkin 5. Collaborative finance: individuals and businesses who invest, lend and borrow directly between each other, such as crowd-funding and peer-to- peer (P2P) lending, this is different from traditional intermediaries like INTERDISCIPLINARY MANAGEMENT RESEARCH XV 1761 banks. Crowdfunding platform includes Kickstarter and LendingClub is an example of lending platform. As reported by European Commission (Vaughan & Daverio, 2016) regard- ing the data from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) UK (Table 1.) - The sharing economy - Sizing the revenue opportunity, these sectors generated revenues of al- most €4 billion and facilitated €28 billion of transactions within Europe in 2015 and to date it includes 275 collaborative economy platforms which are an increase from the previous report (Vaughan & Daverio, 2016). The report shows that the UK and France are the countries with most collaborative economy organizations founded with over 50 organizations; they are followed by Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands with over 25 organizations. Regarding specific sectors in sharing economy most revenue was made by P2P Accommodation and P2P Transporta- tion which cumulatively make around 79% of total revenue from sharing econ- omy in Europe in 2015 (Figure 1.) which was to be expected since not only are they pioneers in the field of sharing economy but they require the least amount of resource.