Home > Issue 3 (Volume 13) > Achieving change in the Healthcare Sector
09
DEC
2020

ABSTRACT

Individual health is an essential prerequisite for achieving quality of life. Healthcare is a basic function of a well-functioning social system. Contemporary changes at economic, social and demographic level require healthcare to show a high adaptive capacity to adapt to the inevitable change. Healthcare change processes need to involve different professional sectors and create an active commitment while avoiding competition and conflicts between the parties involved. In order to ensure long-term sustainability in change, inertia must be overcome. Integration of services is also an important element of sustainability and integration of functions. A service that can be more easily integrated into wider clinical systems seems to have a higher probability of sustainability, partly due to easier support from the stakeholders. It also makes it more difficult to remove these services without having a significant impact on the rest of the system. One of the dangers is that the change can become a part of the system and it is considered for granted and not as a project that requires constant development. Therefore, sustainability should be considered as a constantly evolving rather than a final steady state. In Greece, the goal today is to have a patient-centered health care system with a shifted balance of power from the healthcare provider to the consumer. In order to achieve this, it is important to improve the coordination throughout the healthcare system. Effective co-operation between providers is essential to transform the healthcare system in Greece.

Keywords: Healthcare, change, sustainability.

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