Full Description
Given 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.
Contents
Contents: 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
