ASTK18214U Health Policy in the Nordic Welfare States
Bachelor student: 10 ECTS
Master student: 7.5 ECTS
The course is being offered in collaboration with the Faculty of Public Health.
Health policy is a core component of western welfare states. It is also a very complex and contested policy field where hierarchical, market, clan and network based governance forms meet and sometimes conflict. A diverse range of national and international actors influence health policymaking. This seminar will provide an introduction to comparative health policy analysis as a method for analyzing and comparing health systems. Nordic health systems are used as case examples, but comparisons are made to other types of health systems in Europe. Theories about comparative health policy, public administration, welfare states and health economics are presented as frameworks for analyzing differences and similarities.
Lecture topics include:
- Introduction to health policy: Systems and system design in a comparative light
- Markets, market failure, regulation and governance failure in health care. – Economics of health and welfare
- The political and societal context of health care: Welfare state trajectories and challenges
- Funding, provision and governance
- Governance issues: Centralization/decentralization: Nordic reforms
- Governance issues: Public/private
- Governance issues: Professions/management
- Governance issues: Coordination, networks and patient centered care
- Prioritization and Health Technology Assessment: tools and politics in pharma regulation
- Performance measurement and accountability
- Equity in health: Why should we care?
- Implementation of health policy: challenges and issues
- The future of health care: Aging societies and increasing expenditures
- The future of health care: Digitalization, telemedicine, personalized medicine, robots, exo-skeletons, artificial intelligence and all the rest
Knowledge: Students will obtain knowledge about health systems and health policy in a comparative perspective. Students will be able to account for specific governance issues in contemporary health policy and potential policy responses, using examples from Nordic and European health systems. Student will be able to account for theoretical perspectives on contemporary health policy and in light of welfare state developments.
Skills: Students will be able to analyze specific health policy issues and evaluate the empirical, concrete and complex challenges within the field of health policy. Furthermore, they will understand the different political and managerial challenges that arise from different governance approaches.
Competences: Students will be able to assess and understand the political and societal context of health policy and specific governance issues in health policy using appropriate theoretical perspectives from comparative health systems analysis, public administration and health economics.
Preliminary reading list:
Books: (selected chapters - see details below and in syllabus)
Cam Donaldson, Karen Gerard, Stephen Jan, Craig Mitton, Virginia Wiseman (2004). Economics of Health Care Financing. The Visible Hand
Ewan Ferlie, Kathleen Montgomery, and Anne Reff Pedersen (eds) (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Health Management.
Glied and Smith (2013). The Oxford Handbook of health economics. –
Blank, Robert and Burau, V. (2014). Comparative Health Policy. Fourth ed.
Evans, Robert, Barer, Moris and Teodore Marmor (eds) (1994). Why are some people healthy and others not? The determinants of health of populations. Aldine de Gruyter.
Papanicolas and Smith (eds) (2013) Health system performance
comparison. An agenda for policy information and research pp31-112
(free download from: www: European Observatory on Health Systems)
Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Gøsta Esping-Andersen
Religion and the Western Welfare State, Philip Manow and Kees van
Kersbergen
The New Politics of the Welfare State, Paul Pierson
Globalization, the Welfare State and Inequality, Duane Swank
The Europeanization of Social Protection: Domestic Impacts and National Responses, Jon Kvist and Juho Saari
Breaking with the Past? Why the Global Financial Crisis led to
Austerity Policies but not to Modernization of the Welfare State,
Klaus Armingeon
Ageing and the Welfare State: Securing Sustainability, Volker Meier
and Martin Werding
The Politics of the New Social Policies: Providing Coverage against
New Social Risks in Mature Welfare States, Giuliano Bonoli
Detailed:
Doolin (2016) Implementing E-Health. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Management pp352-374
Porter, Michael E. & Thomas H. Lee (2013): The strategy that will fix health care. Harvard Business Review, the October Issue, available: https://hbr.org/2013/10/the-strategy-that-will-fix-health-care#. AND Porter, Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee (2015): Why Strategy Matters Now. The New England Journal of Medicine, 372 (18):1681-1684.
Evans and Stoddart (1992). Producing health consuming health care. - In Evans et al (eds). Why are some people healthy and others not? Pp27-64
Sheaff and Schofield (2015): Inter-organizational networks, care networks and integrated care. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Care Management. Pp434-459
West and Markiewicz. Effective Team Working in Health Care. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Care Management. Pp231-254
Bryson, J.M and Crosby, B. (2006). The design and implementation of cross-sector collaborations: Propositions from the literature. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Special Issue.
Cutler et al (2013): Socioeconomic status and health: Dimensions and Mechanisms. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics. Pp124-163
Sheiner (2013): Intergenerational aspects of health care. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Eonomics. Pp 870-889
Chernew and May (2013) Health care cost growth. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Eonomics. Pp 308-325
Rathert et al (2014). Re-Humanizing Health Care. - Facilitating "caring" for Patient centered care. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Care Management. Pp141-163
Lavallee et al (2016). Incorporating patient-reported outcomes into health care to engage patients and enhance care. Health Affairs 35:4 pp 575-582
Tuohy and Glied (2013). The Political Economy of Health Care. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Eonomics. Pp 58-77
Maynard, A. Health Care Rationing: Doing it Better in Public and Private Health Care Systems. JHPPL, 38(6), 2013.
Chernichovsky, D. Pluralism, choice, and the state in the emerging paradigm in health systems. The Milbank Quarterly. (80)1, 2002.
Christianson and Conrad (2013). Provider payment and incentives. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Eonomics. Pp 624-648
Osborn, R. et al. International survey of older adults finds shortcomings in access, coordination, and patient-centered care, Health Affairs (33)12 2014.
Propper and Leckie (2013). Increasing competition between providers in health care markets: the Economic evidence. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Eonomics. Pp 671-687
McGuire (2013). Physician Agency and Payment for Primary Care. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Eonomics. Pp 602-623
Blomqvist (2013) Public-sector health care financing. In The Oxford handbook of health economics. Pp 257-284
Porter, Michael E. & Elisabeth Olmsted Teisberg (2006): Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-based Competition on Results. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass. (Supplementary)
Porter, Michael E. (2008): Value-Based Health Care Delivery. Annals of Surgery, 248 (4): 503-509.
Porter, Michael E. What Is Value in Health Care? (2010): The New England Journal of Medicine, 363 (29): 2477-2481.
Burgess and Street (2013). Measuring organizational performance. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Eonomics. Pp 688-706.
Triplett (2013). Health system productivity. In The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics. Pp 707-732
Jenny Lewis (2016). The paradox of performance measurement. Handbook of Health Care Management. Pp 375-392
Bevan, G. and Christopher Hood (2006). What ’ S Measured Is What Matters: Targets And Gaming In The English Public Health Care System. Public Administration Vol. 84, No. 3, 2006 (517–538)
- Category
- Hours
- Class Instruction
- 28
- Total
- 28
- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Type of assessment
- Written assignmentFree assignment
- Marking scale
- 7-point grading scale
- Censorship form
- No external censorship
- Re-exam
Free written assignment
Criteria for exam assesment
- Grade 12 is given for an outstanding performance: the student lives up to the course's goal description in an independent and convincing manner with no or few and minor shortcomings
- Grade 7 is given for a good performance: the student is confidently able to live up to the goal description, albeit with several shortcomings
- Grade 02 is given for an adequate performance: the minimum acceptable performance in which the student is only able to live up to the goal description in an insecure and incomplete manner
Course information
- Language
- English
- Course code
- ASTK18214U
- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Level
- Full Degree MasterBachelor
- Duration
- 1 semester
- Placement
- Spring
- Schedule
- .
- Course capacity
- ..
- Continuing and further education
- Study board
- Department of Political Science, Study Council
Contracting departments
- Department of Political Science
- Department of Public Health
Contracting faculty
- Faculty of Social Sciences
Course Coordinators
- Karsten Vrangbæk (kavr@sund.ku.dk)