Anti-Corruption Bureau Hackathon Seeks Ways to Curb Risks in Hospital Procurement

Latvia's Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) held an innovation hackathon on 23 and 24 September, bringing together experts from different fields to find practical solutions. The focus was corruption risk in public procurement in the medical sector, which concerns how hospitals spend public money.

Why the topic matters

An analysis by KNAB shows that two-thirds of Latvian hospitals' anti-corruption plans do not fully meet the bureau's assessment criteria. Some plans have not been updated for more than three years. Procurement control measures were found to be the weakest part of these plans. KNAB is also currently investigating criminal cases linked to the procurement of several hospitals.

Who took part

The aim was to identify problems in preparing and carrying out procurement, and to propose solutions that would improve quality, encourage competition and help detect corruption risks and conflicts of interest in time. Participants came from KNAB, the Ministry of Health, the Procurement Monitoring Bureau, the Competition Council, the Central Finance and Contracting Agency, four major hospitals, the association Delna, as well as data scientists and artificial intelligence experts.

Proposed solutions

Five teams developed several proposals, including:

• competence centres for preparing complex and financially large medical procurements;
• a digital tool for checking procurement documentation and the requirements set in it;
• a large language model (LLM) solution to help prepare and review technical specifications and other documents;
• a reference price register for medical goods and devices, allowing procurement specialists to compare prices from earlier procurements.

All teams stressed integrity as an important precondition. KNAB Deputy Head for strategy and policy planning Sandijs Vectēvs said that even the most complete control system cannot fully make up for a weak culture of integrity, and that data or digital tools cannot replace personal responsibility.

Next steps

The solutions will be compiled and presented to Ministry of Health officials in the near future to assess whether they can be put into practice. The hackathon was held under the European Union Recovery Fund project "Development of Open, Transparent, Honest and Accountable Public Administration", implemented by the State School of Administration.