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Managing Health(-Care Systems) Using Information Health Technologies

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Abstract

This study aims to compare and contrast how specific information health technologies (IHTs) have been debated, how they have proliferated, and what they have enabled in Germany’s and England’s healthcare systems. For this a discourse analysis was undertaken that specifically focussed on future-scenarios articulated in policy documents and strategy papers released by relevant actors from both healthcare systems. The study reveals that the way IHTs have been debated and how they have proliferated depends on country-specific regulatory structures, their respective values, actors’ and institutions’ organized interests, and the status of health professionals. These conditions have enabled IHTs to promote a new and similar concept of patienthood in both countries, although they tend to affect practitioners’ practices more dramatically in England. The conclusion is drawn that with the usage of IHTs, healthcare systems reproduced existing patterns of health provision while also enabling a sort of convergence. Future research should investigate whether the new concept of patienthood emerging in both welfare states actually suits patients’ and professionals’ needs and requirements.

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Acknowledgments

I am exceptionally grateful to Carl May for permitting a 3-month attendance at the Institute for Health and Society at the University of Newcastle where this study was primarily being conducted. Very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper have been contributed by Carl May, Tim Rapley, Tracy Finch, Neil Jenkins, Rob Wilson, James Cornford, Ben Heaven, Christoph Heintze and Jörg Niewöhner. I also gratefully acknowledge those who have enabled this research fellowship in scope of the research cluster “the preventive self” awarded by Germany’s Ministry of Education and Research, especially Stefan Beck and Jörg Niewöhner. Moreover, I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers who offered helpful comments on an earlier version of this draft.

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Mathar, T. Managing Health(-Care Systems) Using Information Health Technologies. Health Care Anal 19, 180–191 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-010-0150-z

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