Suchergebnisse

Recognizing the advantages of primary care as a means of improving the entire health system, this text comments on reforms of publicly funded primary health centers, and the rapid development of private for-profit providers in Sweden. Many goals and expectations are connected to such reforms, which equally require critical analyses of scarce resources, professional trust/motivation and business logic in the wake of freedom and control of ownership and management. In line with Saltman and Duran, this article calls for research and a methodologically developed approach to capture everyday practice in-depth and how regulation, market incentives and patient demands are met by professionals and primary care leaders.

There is an ongoing debate in the scientific community whether financial incentives have unintended consequences, for example less internal motivation and damaged professional autonomy. Little is however known about the views among health care professionals in primary care. Early findings show that financial incentives are no source of motivation, but can act as drivers for innovative quality improvements.

Although there have been many studies of low skilled call centre operators, research on professional workers in call centres is less common and cross-national research on such operations even rarer. This article compares the labour process experiences of tele-nurses – registered nurses in call centre settings – across three countries: the UK, Australia and Sweden. Using cross-national, comparative ethnographies, through a system, society and dominance (SSD) approach, the article explores the common problems tele-nurses face as well as distinctive societal differences in the ways in which this branch of e-health care is being established. The outcomes reveal both societal diversity and mounting pressures towards a globalizing conformity between the three countries with regard to the working practices of tele-nursing. The findings have important implications for whether or not a professional project can be developed around tele-health care.

This article investigates the role of locally based research and development units (R&Ds) focusing on health and social services. Nearly 300 local RDs are funded by the Swedish government with the intention to facilitate knowledge transfer and development of high quality and effective health and social care organisations. Based on analyses of archival data on aims, activities and outputs of R&Ds focusing on care for older people the authors argue that local R&Ds have potentials to act as knowledge brokers, change agents and researchers, but these overlapping roles need clarified strategies and enactment of a variety of skills.