Health and Healthcare in Transition: Dilemmas of Governance

2020/2021

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

4

ECTS credits

Delivered at:

Department of Political Science and International Affairs

Course type:

Elective course

When:

3 year, 4 module

Instructor

Егоров Роман Вадимович

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This blended-learning course aims to familiarize students with modern healthcare systems, approaches to their management, as well as global new challenges. After completing this course, students will be aware of various healthcare systems, approaches to healthcare management, the concept of good governance and its specific aspects, such as public-private partnerships and public participation. The course makes use of the Coursera MOOC "Health and healthcare in transition: dilemmas of governance" (available at: https://www.coursera.org/learn/health-dilemmas-of-governance).

Learning Objectives

• The goal is being able to analyze public health policy and evaluate changing social context.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Student is capable of executing applied analysis of the political phenomena and political processes - by using political science methods - and in support of practical decision making process
• Able to think critically and interpret the experience (personal and of other persons), relate to professional and social activities
• Student is capable of retrieving, collecting, processing and analyzing information relevant for achieving goals in the professional field

Course Contents

• Healthcare Systems in the Contemporary World. Definitions: Governance vs Management vs Leadership in Health
  This lesson focuses on the main challenges and global shifts in the healthcare sector, which, in turn, create a demand for more systemic approaches to governance, management, and leadership. It appears to be difficult to differentiate these concepts (governance, management, and leadership) clearly due to their interrelations and complexity. This module will introduce different ways of defining and relating these concepts in order to illustrate challenges to finding a consensus between such definitions. History of the classification of health systems. The nature, purpose and limits of classification in comparative health policy
• Health as a Political vs Apolitical Concept
  Assessing health system governance and performance requires ethical reflection on the following questions: 1) Who is responsible for health? 2) Who are the beneficiaries? There are different approaches in seeking answers to these questions. Healthcare policies entail scientific data, technologies, and expert recommendations that can appear non-political, as well as cultural norms and respect to individual liberty. But, on the other hand, health can become political in the context of decision-making that entails the distribution of resources and the selection of priorities and modes of action. So, in this module we will delve into these complexities and will work to understand what stands behind health policy and governance decisions. We will take a look at different ethical concepts that may underpin political decisions on health governance, health care reforms, or demands for redistributive policies.
• Public Participation vs Top-Down Steering
  On the one hand, citizens’ engagement in governance of health and health care is important for the transparency and responsiveness of decision-making, as well as for ensuring trust and cooperation. Moreover, often citizens themselves demand direct engagement, as exemplified by health activism: from local action to addressing environmental health risks, to global action on HIV/AIDS, and access to medicine. On the other hand, critics suggest that laypersons can add inefficiency, irrationality, and incoherence to health policy decision-making. There can be undesirable features in governance models heavily dependent on public engagement like interest-group competition in rule-making and the professionalization of citizen participation, where not all citizens are necessarily equally empowered to make contributions.
• Focus on Whole-of-Society vs Focus on Health Services Provision
  Health governance is a field where the search for best solutions is continuous in all corners of the world. Health systems increasingly struggle with rising costs, ensuring adequate numbers of health professionals and providing access to the best life-saving treatments and technologies. You will hardly find a country that would not attempt to improve health system performance through reforming the health sector and improving health care delivery. But people’s health depends on multiple complex factors (from employment and work to transport and housing) and relates to social processes of industrialization, urbanization and globalization and to differential exposures to risks. Drivers of human health are not constrained to the health care system. Therefore, new and wider approaches to health governance appear: they are based on the idea of extending health governance from sectorial focus to the whole-of-society and whole-of-government level. These approaches argue that the improvement of a population’s health necessitates engaging non-health sectors and actors through policies and initiatives at all levels of governance, with or without the involvement of the health sector itself. This creates a dilemma for health governance: should it be focused on improving health service provision only, or embrace the whole of society and all sectors of governance?
• De Jure and de Facto Dimensions of Healthcare Governance
  Quite often the identification of the gaps or problems in the health care system result in recommendations to change certain regulations, i.e. to adopt a new law, to make the changes in the existing law, to issue an order etc (de jure dimension). Indeed, the suggestion to improve regulatory dimension can be seen as a systemic approach because the behavior and practices take place within the specific existing structure. Therefore, regulations are seen as the efficient entry point that has an impact on the numerous practices. However, changing structures or policy development requires substantial resources, e.g. political support, time and expertise. Also, the rule of law in some countries can be low, meaning that even if the law is adopted, it is not necessary that it will be reflected in actual practices. Sometimes the results are poor not because of lack of law, but because people may simply be lacking knowledge, skills, competences in, for example, organization management. Therefore, introducing new regulations (de jure dimension) is not always the entry point for the new (more healthy, more effective, more transparent etc.) practices (de facto dimension). Thus, we discuss a dilemma related to inconsistencies and imbalance between the structures on the one hand, and practices on the other hand, as well as the challenges that arise when only one perspective (de jure or de facto) is taken into account. In this lesson we explore the dilemma between de jure and de facto dimensions in health care governance.
• Change, Reforms and Stability in Health and Healthcare Governance
  The stability of healthcare systems can be equally as important as change, especially in systems that are performing relatively well. The issue of stability and change in sectors and institutions, including health care, is rooted in the socio-cultural and historical context of the country as well as in current capacities for change. We may see that some countries or systems are more inclined to change when compared to others. Indeed, health care reforms have occurred in most post-communist countries after the Soviet Union collapsed, however the healthcare systems of some of the ex-republics continue functioning as they were designed in the Soviet Union. Several decades ago stability was seen as one of the most essential values in this setting, while now nostalgic moods in some of the countries may partially explain difficulties in the implementing reforms. In this module we will illustrate the concepts of “stability” and “change” or “reform” by the case of changing tax-based and insurance-based mechanisms of health care system financing, and its performance under varying and transforming socio-cultural and health conditions. The transition in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe is taken as an illustrative context for the case.

Assessment Elements

• Online Course Assignments
  Assignments suggested by the MOOC
• Group presentation: Development of a healthcare governance system
  For the discussion group students prepare a group presentation devoted to the healthcare system and its development in any state. Specific systems are assigned to the groups by the instructor. In a group, there should be no more than 5 people. Students should cover: the stages of development of health system in the last 25 years; main leaders and reformers there; were there any changes due to history; essential values of the healthcare system; the role of NGO and business in the healthcare system. Time of presenting is not more than 15 minutes. The presentation should be done in PowerPoint (or something like that). Presentations should be sent to the instructor before the 26th of April.
• Essays
  Within the course student have to write 2 short essays (150-200 words), that covers the 1st and the 3rd week’s topics. The first essay must be submitted on April, the 12th , the 3rd essay – on April, the 27th. The essays might be sent to the e-mail of instructor.
• Final Test
  The final test is administered at the last seminar of the course. The test consists of 20 closed questions. Each correct answer for a question yields 1 point
• Test
  Test consist of 10 closed question devoted to the 2nd week topic of the course. Test might be passed online and it should be done till the April, the 19th.

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (4 module)
  0.15 * Essays + 0.25 * Final Test + 0.25 * Group presentation: Development of a healthcare governance system + 0.25 * Online Course Assignments + 0.1 * Test

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Bambra, C., Fox, D., & Scott-Samuel, A. (2005). Towards a politics of health. Health Promotion International ; Volume 20, Issue 2, Page 187-193 ; ISSN 1460-2245 0957-4824. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/dah608
• Roberts, M. J., & Reich, M. R. (2002). Ethical analysis in public health. Lancet, 359(9311), 1055. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(02)08097-2

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Carla Cardoso. (2012). Brazil: towards sustainability and equity in health. Revista Da Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia, 17(2), 236. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1516-80342012000200023