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Whither managerialism in the Italian National Health Service?
Author(s) -
AnessiPessina Eugenio,
Cantù Elena
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the international journal of health planning and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1099-1751
pISSN - 0749-6753
DOI - 10.1002/hpm.861
Subject(s) - managerialism , public relations , health care , public sector , service (business) , public health , new public management , political science , public administration , sociology , business , medicine , marketing , nursing , law
In the last decade, the Italian National Health Service has been characterized by the introduction of managerial concepts and techniques, according to the New Public Management paradigm. Recently, these reforms have been increasingly criticized. This article examines the implementation of managerialism in an attempt to evaluate its overall achievements and shortcomings. Overall, managerialism seems to have made good progress: managerial skills are improving; several management tools have been adapted to health‐care and public‐sector peculiarities; health‐care organizations have adopted a wide range of technical solutions to fit their specific needs. At the same time, managerial innovations have often focused on structures as opposed to processes, on the way the organization looks as opposed to the way it works, on the tools it has as opposed to those it actually needs and uses. We thus suggest that research, training and policy‐making should stop focusing on the technical features and theoretical virtues of specific tools and should redirect their emphasis on change management. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.