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Change agents and service providers? User organizations in the German healthcare system
Author(s) -
Ewert Benjamin
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
european policy analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.558
H-Index - 12
ISSN - 2380-6567
DOI - 10.18278/epa.1.1.10
Subject(s) - health care , business , german , public relations , service provider , marketing , service (business) , health literacy , promotion (chess) , knowledge management , internet privacy , political science , computer science , politics , archaeology , history , law
In emerging healthcare markets, user organizations, conceived as patient organizations, self‐help groups, and customer services, now face the challenge of acting as both change agents and service providers. On the one hand, they are expected to push for user‐oriented healthcare reforms; on the other hand, they are urged to facilitate users’ healthcare consumption by supporting them in their decisions regarding healthcare providers and treatments, relationships to physicians, and concerning the promotion of health literacy. This plurality of tasks, which must be carried out against a backdrop of scant resources, means that many user organizations are in danger of losing their corrective civil society‐based influence vis‐à‐vis the power of healthcare professionals and providers. User organizations, having criticized the system in the past, may thus become ‘ordinary’ service agencies operating at arm's length from established healthcare providers and administrators. Given these developments, this contribution scrutinizes how different types of user organizations are responding to systemic change and the resulting conflicts. Drawing on an empirical study of the German healthcare system, two research interests are pursued. First, how do user organizations reshape their profiles in a more marketized healthcare system? Second, what strategies can a user organization adopt to minimize the risk of becoming a ‘jack‐of‐all‐trades’?