title: Leadership and governance in seven developed health systems.
abstract: This paper explores leadership and governance arrangements in seven developed health systems: Australia, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. It presents a cybernetic model of leadership and governance comprising three fundamental functions: priority setting, performance monitoring and accountability arrangements. The paper uses a structured survey to examine critically current arrangements in the seven countries. Approaches to leadership and governance vary substantially, and have to date been developed piecemeal and somewhat arbitrarily. Although there seems to be reasonable consensus on broad goals of the health system there is variation in approaches to setting priorities. Cost-effectiveness analysis is in widespread use as a basis for operational priority setting, but rarely plays a central role. Performance monitoring may be the domain where there is most convergence of thinking, although countries are at different stages of development. The third domain of accountability is where the greatest variation occurs, and where there is greatest uncertainty about the optimal approach. We conclude that a judicious mix of accountability mechanisms is likely to be appropriate in most settings, including market mechanisms, electoral processes, direct financial incentives, and professional oversight and control. The mechanisms should be aligned with the priority setting and monitoring processes.
authors.affiliation: Imperial College Business School & Centre for Health Policy, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom. peter.smith@imperial.ac.uk
authors.forename: Peter C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Anell
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Busse
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Crivelli
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Healy
authors.forename: Anne Karin
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Lindahl
authors.forename: Gert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Westert
authors.forename: Tobechukwu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kene
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019049:Developed Countries; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership