Medicine, economics and agenda-setting

The Canadian case: Cornucopia of neglected research opportunities

“…So, after all this effort, the tradition has virtually disappeared. This "truncated development" is in distinct contrast to the Australian case from which a steady flow of ever improving work has emerged (Encel 1970;Higley et al 1979;Muller and Headey 1996;Goldfinch 1998Goldfinch , 1999Lewis and Considine 1999).…”

Reliable in their failure: An analysis of healthcare reform policies in public systems

“…Physicians' unions or faculties of medicine certainly are powerful actors with lots of clout, but this alone would, in our view, be insufficient to explain the status quo. There is usually not even any need for them to oppose proposals that contradict their preferences, since these are, from the beginning, "naturally" taken into account when drafting legislative proposals [48,56]. As we argue here, conformity with stakeholders' expectations goes beyond abiding by the conscious rent-seeking political behaviour of such groups.…”

“…However, implementation of their recommendations was quite limited, and this, in a very clear, non-random pattern. The unimplemented elements were always those that entailed significant transformations for powerful interest groups (i.e., doctors, hospital associations, teaching hospitals and faculties of medicine) [47,48]. On the other hand, the implemented elements were mostly modifications to the system's administration.…”

The human factor: Re-organisations in public health policy

“…One Australian case study exploring medical profession in agenda setting and policy-making found that actors' position in the network was the actors key to wielding power, with associated key attributes: main discipline, employment in academia, health bureaucracies, and public teaching hospitals [17]. This was followed up by several network studies using positional and reputational approaches to test the hypothesis that medicine position in health policy-making has declined, and to unpack patterns of connectedness which identified influential individuals and groups, and to "unpack personal and positional resources".…”