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Structural patterns in Swedish health policy: a 30-year perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2014

Richard B. Saltman
Richard B. Saltman*
Affiliation:
Professor of Health Policy and Management, Emory University, USA
*
*Correspondence to: Richard B. Saltman, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, 1518 Clifton Rd NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30338, USA. Email: RSALTMA@emory.edu
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Abstract

This perspective reviews key institutional and organizational patterns in Swedish health care over the last 30 years, probing the roots of several complicated policy questions that concern present-day Swedish decision-makers. It explores in particular the ongoing structural tension between stability, on the one hand, and the necessary levels of innovation and dynamism demanded by the current period of major clinical, technological, economic, social and supranational (EU) change. Where useful, the article compares Swedish developments with those in the other three European Nordic countries as well as other northern European health systems. Sweden’s health sector evolution can provide valuable insight for other countries into the complexity involved in re-thinking tradeoffs between policies that emphasize stability as against those that encourage innovation in health sector governance and provision.

Type
Perspectives
Information
Health Economics, Policy and Law , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 2015 , pp. 195 - 215
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2014 

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