Description
Book SynopsisGiven growing caseloads, limited funding and staff shortages, the need for coordination in healthcare and elderly care is at an all-time high. This timely book conducts a cross-national analysis of coordination problems in healthcare and long-term care systems, providing novel insights on how to improve the lives of the elderly.
This book focuses on four European welfare states with well-developed healthcare and long-term care systems: Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. It examines the two critical interfaces of the transition from hospital care to home care and integrated home care arrangements. Using empirical data and extensive interviews with major stakeholder organisations, the authors identify best practice examples of healthcare and long-term coordination. The book ultimately considers both professional-level and system-level coordination problems, suggesting original solutions in financing reform, institutionalisation, and academisation.
Healthcare and Elderly Care in Europe will be a fascinating read for scholars and students interested in health policy, long-term care, the sociology of health, welfare states and comparative public policy. It will also be a valuable guide for policymakers seeking to design effective healthcare and long-term care systems.
Trade Review‘This book focuses on a very important yet understudied topic: how to improve the living conditions of frail older people through better coordination between healthcare and elderly care systems. The volume analyses the coordination problems in Continental European countries and puts forward very interesting proposals for solutions. The book is a necessary read for those studying long-term care systems.’ -- Emmanuele Pavolini, University of Macerata, Italy
‘Coordination in service delivery is important for individual well-being and a great challenge for contemporary systems of care. This book provides an insightful and theoretically grounded comparative analysis of coordination problems in long-term care, as well as a great variety of concrete solutions to overcome the most challenging obstacles for effective coordination.’ -- Kenneth Nelson, Stockholm University, Sweden
‘Clearly written and well-researched, this book applies a compelling actor-centric and institutionalist framework to analyze and compare coordination problems between healthcare and elderly care systems in four European countries: Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. Students of health policy governance should learn a great deal from reading this excellent book.’ -- Daniel Béland, McGill University, Canada
Table of ContentsContents: 1. Healthcare and elderly care in Europe: an introduction 2. Theory: institutions and actors 3. Data and methods: interviews with stakeholder organizations 4. Germany: social insurance with a divide between healthcare and long-term care 5. The Netherlands: institutional fragmentation in a patient-centered system 6. Sweden: regional and local autonomy 7. Switzerland: merits and downsides of medical dominance 8. Professional-level problems: staff shortage, divided responsibilities, or missing communication? 9. System-level coordination problems: impact of the institutional structure 10. Conclusion: coordination requires financing reform, institutionalization, and academization References Index
