Course description
Healthcare is currently faced with a myriad of issues. An aging population requires more complex healthcare provision. For example, people live longer with chronic conditions that require treatment, while at the same time innovations in technology and medical sciences increase opportunities for diagnosis and treatment, requiring professionals from a variety of disciplines to be involved. This increased complexity challenges the affordability, accessibility, and quality of healthcare. As a response, more collaboration is required within and between healthcare organizations. Indeed, policymakers increasingly urge organizations to form collaborative networks to solve the complexities related to these developments in healthcare. However, it is difficult for policymakers to monitor the quality and functioning of these collaborative networks. This is problematic because these collaborative networks often do not achieve their goals.
A certain form of governance is necessary to align goals, stimulate activities, and prevent or solve conflicts. But what form of governance is most fitting under what conditions? And how do governance and structure affect collaboration (and v.v.)? To strategize a network for success, it is necessary to know about the strategy for healthcare networks and how to form an effective mode of governance.
In this course, you will learn how knowledge of strategy and governance in networks as well as designing social science research on inter-organizational networks can provide rich insights into the collaboration in intra- and interorganizational networks. Our setting is in healthcare because nowhere are organizational networks as prevalent - and as versatile - as in healthcare.
This course teaches skills in R and RStudio, concerning the packages xUcinet and iGraph for analysis and visualization of organizational networks in healthcare.
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