Workshop on Explaining Healthcare System Change

Dates: December 4-5, 2008
Application Deadline: August 1, 2008
Location: Collaborative Research Center 597, ‘Transformations of the State’ at the University of Bremen, Germany

Healthcare systems in the OECD world face ongoing reform pressure. Medical technological progress, demographic change and increasingly informed consumers tend to raise healthcare costs but also affect the organization of healthcare systems. While demand is rising, economic resources are limited and globalization arguably constrains public financing sources culminating in the need for more efficient healthcare systems. At the same time, healthcare systems are complex entities, often characterized by path dependency and institutional inertia and influenced by notoriously powerful interest groups.

This interdisciplinary workshop aims to bring together researchers in different fields dealing with the explanation of change in healthcare systems. We therefore invite a wide range of empirical and theoretical contributions from healthcare policy, political science, economics, sociology, and related fields which go beyond mere description and provide some explanatory account of healthcare system transformation. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches to the explanation of healthcare system change are welcomed. We also invite participation from scholars working in other policy sectors of the welfare state whose work also applies to healthcare research.

This workshop will be held in Bremen, Germany on December 4-5, 2008.

Papers are invited on any of the following themes:
- Case studies and case comparisons: how can they inform the explanation of change?
- The role of ideas and values in promoting change
- Policy learning and the diffusion of policy instruments
- The contribution of theory to the understanding of healthcare system change
- Institutional theories and path dependent explanations
- Functionalist approaches: can efficiency pressure be the motor of change?
-  Power resources and interest formation: how do they translate?

We also welcome contributions differentiating between healthcare reform versus policy drift,
conversion, and layering. 

Keynote speakers and discussants include David Wilsford, Daniel Beland, Notburga Ott, Thomas Gerlinger, amongst others.

Applicants should provide a 500 word abstract of their paper by August 1, 2008 to be sent to Heinz Rothgang, Professor of Health Economics at the Center for Social Policy Research
(rothgang@zes.uni-bremen.de) in Bremen. If your abstract is accepted for presentation at the conference, a paper should be submitted by Friday, October 31, 2008.

If you have any questions regarding this workshop, please refer to
Dr. Lorraine Frisina: lorraine.frisina@sfb597.uni-bremen.de, phone: +49(0)421-218 8729 or
Mirella Cacace: mirella.cacace@sfb597.uni-bremen.de, phone: +49(0)421-218 8731