Systems Theory and the Sociology of Health and Illness #Luhmann

Today I got my copy from Systems Theory and the Sociology of Health and Illness – Observing Healthcare, a book edited by Morten Knudsen and Werner Vogd. The book contains very interesting chapters on this topic, and though it is not so cheap for private purchasing, you may consider ordering this book through your library.

Here is a short abstract of my contribution, Sustainability in Integrated Care Partnerships: a systems and network theoretical approach to analyse co-operation networks. The chapter highlights the importance and role of networks in the stabilization of meaningful arrangements between different contextures that refer to the basic conflict between medical and economic systems. Control mechanisms, which are applied to arrange these polycontextural conditions, have been analysed. Qualitative interviews were conducted with actors involved integrated care partnerships. Results show that loosely linked networks can take on important control functions in the sustainable balancing of financial, nursing and medical demands. Too tightly forged links prevent dynamic balancing and relating of different contextures. In such cases, networks can lose beneficial self-regulation capacities to eliminate drawbacks.