Public Accountability And Health Care Governance

This book deals with the critical empirical void created by the speed at which healthcare restructuring has taken place in Europe. Chapters explore the political uncertainty and budgetary pressures which have led governments increasingly to turn to New Public Management (NPM)-style reforms to attempt to balance the financial viability of public health structures, with democratic imperatives to maintain socially just outcomes. The authors of this volume consider how governments have therefore shifted identities from principal care providers to contractual monitors, setting targets increasingly directed toward third-party managers in quasi-markets and the private sector. Drawing upon extensive data from Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, and Israel, the contributions explore the often unexpected policy outputs and outcomes engendered by such reforms.

This book is a collection of scholarly articles on the themes of accountability and responsibility in health care and seeks to be the premier book in that field.

The governance of health care in Ontario has long provided opportunities for citizens and stakeholders to participate, deliberate, and influence health care policy and investment decisions. Yet, despite providing opportunities for deliberation and influence amongst citizens, we don’t know how democratic the system actually is. Distributed Democracy advances an original analytical framework to guide an investigation of democracy and accountability relationships in complex policy making environments. Applying the analytical framework in the context of health care governance in Ontario from 2004–2019, Carey Doberstein shows that the popular criticisms of health care governance in Ontario are misplaced. The democratic system of local health care governance is often plagued by severed connections among the various layers of deliberation and policy-making. An incisive analysis with considerable relevance for policy-makers and across academic disciplines, Distributed Democracy makes an important contribution to our understanding of policy development and decision-making as well as the limitations and potential of distributed democratic accountability.

A range of collaborative governance mechanisms has developed in many policy arenas in the past decade. The study on governance for health in the 21st century tracks governance innovations that have been introduced to address priority determinants of health and summarizes them as five strategic approaches to smart governance for health. The study relates the emergence of joint action of the health sector and non-health sectors, of public and private actors and of citizens to achieve seminal changes in 21st-century societies. They include a new understanding of health and well-being as key features of what constitutes a successful society and vibrant economy and the higher value placed on equity and participation. The study further describes the type of structures and mechanisms that enable collaboration and outlines the new role that health ministers and ministries and public health agencies need to adopt in such a challenging policy environment.

This publication sets out a framework for analysing the performance of governments in developing countries, looking at the government as a whole and at local and municipal levels, and focusing on individual sectors that form the core of essential government services, such as health, education, welfare, waste disposal, and infrastructure. It draws lessons from performance measurement systems in a range of industrial countries to identify good practice around the world in improving public sector governance, combating corruption and making services work for poor people.

Sixth edition of the hugely successful, internationally recognised textbook on global public health and epidemiology, with 3 volumes comprehensively covering the scope, methods, and practice of the discipline

“With better governance a key issue in the NHS boardroom, this book provides a comprehensive underpinning to future developments.” Roger Moore, Chief Executive, NHS Appointments Commission, UK "This book provides a much needed integration of different streams in the quality movement, examining the need and methods for control and accountability as well as the continuous improvement approach." John Ovretveit, The Karolinska Institute Medical Management Centre, Stockholm, Sweden “This excellent book is both informative and challenging…[it] helps us work our way through the contradictory and often inconsistent health maze that is bound by quality, risk, control, governance, trust, regulation, private activity, accountability, assurance and outcome.” Adam Graycar, Cabinet Office of South Australia This book explores the concepts of trust, control and risk management as key components of organisational accountability in the public sector. It explores how the concept of risk management has been introduced into the public sector and how this has impacted on the definition of governance in the National Health Service. It also addresses the concept of controls assurance by placing it in the context of developments both in local health care management and central government. Key questions that are addressed include: ·How can devolved public sector organisations be held accountable? · What is the relationship between risk, control and governance? ·How do private sector ideas about governance translate into the provision of public health services? Quality, Risk and Control in Health Care is essential reading for health policy makers, health practitioners and professionals, as well as students and academics in the fields of health policy, health services management, social policy and public policy.