Factors Influencing Private Hospitals’ Participation in the Innovation of Biomedical Engineering Industry: A Perspective of Evolutionary Game Theory

The innovation of the biomedical engineering (BME) industry is inseparable from its cooperation with medical institutions. China has considerable medical institutions. Although private hospitals account for more than half of Chinese medical institutions, they rarely participate in biomedical engineering industry innovation. This paper analyzed the collaborative relationship among biomedical engineering enterprises, universities, research institutes, public hospitals and private hospitals through evolutionary game theory and discussed the influence of different factors on the collaborative innovation among them. A tripartite evolutionary game model is established which regards private hospitals as a stakeholder. The results show that (1) the good credit of private hospitals has a positive effect on their participation in collaborative innovation; (2) it is helpful for BME collaborative innovation to enhance the collaborative innovation ability of partners; (3) the novelty of innovation projects has an impact on BME collaborative innovation. The specific impacts depend on the revenue, cost and risk allocation ratio of innovation partners; (4) the higher the practicability of innovation projects, the more conducive to collaborative innovation.