CERGAS Webinar "Performance measurement and management in health prevention"

Abstract

Literature on performance measurement and management in health has traditionally focussed on the hospital and the ambulatory settings. The reasons may be found both in the importance of these settings in terms of resources absorbed, and in the greater measurability their outputs and outcomes. Narrowed attention has been devoted to the measurement and management of public health and health prevention results.

These domains are characterized by what literature calls “wicked problems” (Rittel & Weber, 1973; Head & Alford, 2015). Wicked problems are issues hard to define and manage due to the high complexity of the environment which they affect. In particular, according to Head & Alford (2015), wicked problems exist in environments characterized by social pluralism, institutional complexity and scientific uncertainty.

In this seminar, attention will be devoted to the contribution that management studies may provide in the activity of measuring and managing the performance of health prevention programmes and services conceived as “wicked” topics. In particular, it will be discussed the implications that management paradigms such as stakeholder theory, collaborative governance, co-production and system dynamics may provide to tackle the social pluralism, institutional complexity and scientific uncertainty characterizing health prevention performance.

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