The Challenges of Hospitals' Planning & Control Systems: The Path toward Public Value Management.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2021;
18:ijerph18052732. [PMID:
33800430 PMCID:
PMC7967456 DOI:
10.3390/ijerph18052732]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2021] [Revised: 02/26/2021] [Accepted: 03/02/2021] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
In the last decades, public management has been subjected to a shift from the New Public Management (NPM) paradigm to the Public Value Management (PVM) one. Thus, management practices such as Planning and Control (P&C) systems have been called to evolve accordingly. The health care sector has not escaped this process. This paper focuses on the evolution of hospitals’ P&C systems to support the paradigm shift from the NPM paradigm to the PVM one. In particular, the paper aims at exploring whether hospitals’ P&C systems in Italy evolved, or are evolving, consistently with PVM and what are the expected benefits related to such a paradigm switch. To address the research aim, the paper is based on a review of scientific and grey literature and the case study of the diabetic-foot pathway in an Italian Regional Healthcare System. The results of this study show that the current P&C systems in Italian hospitals are not yet designed to support the shift toward the PVM approach and are still mainly focused on financial aspects and intra-organizational dynamics. Combining traditional P&Cs with performance measures assessing the system’s outcomes may support hospitals in aligning their goals with the health system they are operating within and, therefore, P&C systems may represent an important driving force toward change. Such results provide suggestions for both practitioners and academics on how to adapt P&C systems to better support the implementation of current strategies of the public sector.
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