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Public-private partnerships : a qualitative approach to prospects for pharmacy in the South African health care environment / Johan Christiaan Lamprecht

BACKGROUND:
Powerful public-private partnerships (PPPs) can only be established if the partners are
able to deal with complexity. Such partnerships may serve to stimulate local community
and economic development. Thus, it may maximise the effectiveness of local groups
and resources in meeting the needs for rebuilding a community through a partnership
representative of the public and private sectors. A problem that exists in South Africa, is
the uneven distribution of population ratios dependent on public and private sector
health care service delivery, in relation to the proportion of pharmaceutical service
providers in the different sectors.
OBJECTIVE:
The main objectives of this qualitative research investigation were to examine the
prospects for PPP development in the pharmaceutical sector of South Africa as well as
to explore the possibilities of a proposition for a proposed generic public-private
partnership model to be managed and used in the pharmaceutical sector of South
Africa.
METHOD:
The study comprises of the exploration of the research questions by means of a
qualitative research design. The study design implicated a balance between the in-depth
literature study and a qualitative research process. The researcher employed a
grounded theory approach to collect and analyse the data. Data collection represented
the identifiable role players and opinion formulators in the South African health care
sector. By following a combination of the various qualitative sampling methods and
techniques, a total of 38 (n=38) interviews were conducted. The data collected from the
interviewees and from the literature study were integrated and analysed by making use
of computer assisted data analysis.
SETTING:
The researcher selected interviewees from the South African health care sector. The
interviews included role players in the pharmaceutical sector in both the public and
private sectors. The interviewees further represented eight different spheres of the
pharmaceutical setting in South Africa.
KEY FINDINGS:
The investigation identified a range of prospects for PPP development in South Africa
and these were reported in terms of views, expectations and scope for success. The
management elements for developing and sustaining joint ventures between the public
and private sectors were identified and a proposition was formulated in theory to serve
as a proposed generic PPP model (PGM) in the pharmaceutical sector for the South
African health care milieu.
CONCLUSION
The exploratory qualitative investigation surfaced the various facets of the complexity of
PPPs. The investigation concluded that several barriers, such as competition and
market entry disparities between the macro and micro level pharmaceutical entities,
which impede PPP development, affected the prospects for PPP development in South
Africa. The South African legislation, South African Treasury guidelines, regulations and
the views of the SA Competition Commission need transformation to accommodate
both the micro and macro level pharmaceutical service providers in the formation of
PPPs. Capacity building within the sphere of pharmaceutical service delivery to the
bigger population of South Africa may become sustainable on removal of these barriers.
A series of recommendations were presented and several critical issues in need of
supplementary research, have been identified. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Pharmacy Practice))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/1133
Date January 2007
CreatorsLamprecht, Johan Christiaan
PublisherNorth-West University
Source SetsNorth-West University
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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