The Social Organisation of Healthcare Work

by Allen, Davina; Pilnick, Alison

• ISBN13: 9781405133340
• ISBN10: 1405133341
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-17
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This book presents an international snapshot of the social organization of healthcare work. It brings together a series of papers describing major trends in health services in Australia, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, South America, UK and the USA, including the introduction of new models of organizational governance, the emergence of new medical technologies, and the effects of the promotion of private health insurance.The book 's contributors draw on research from a range of disciplines, including organisational sociology and sociology of scientific knowledge, as well as medical sociology, and foster links between these different bodies of work. What emerges is a picture of rapidly evolving healthcare systems, in which the traditional lines of demarcation are being challenged, prompting the development of new roles and new ways of working.

Author Biography

Davina Allen is a Professor and Research Director at the School of Nursing and Midwifery Studies, Cardiff University. Her research interests are concerned with the organization and delivery of health and social services and its relationship to clinical effectiveness, service quality and professional education and socialisation. She has published with David Hughes on Nursing and the Division of Labour in Healthcare (2002) and her recent work has focused on the co-ordination of complex care trajectories.

Alison Pilnick is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham. Her primary research interests are in the field of professional/client interaction, particularly the way in which changing professional roles are negotiated interactionally, and the impact of new technologies on work organization and practice. She is author of Genetics and Society (2002) and a co-editor of the journal Sociology of Health and Illness.

Table of Contents

1 Making connections: healthcare as a case study in the social organisation of work	1	(17)
Davina Allen and Alison Pilnick
2 The promotion of private health insurance and its implications for the social organisation of healthcare: a case study of private sector obstetric practice in Chile	18	(20)
Susan F. Murray and Mary Ann Elston
3 Understanding the social organisation of maternity care systems: midwifery as a touchstone	38	(16)
Cecilia Benoit, Sirpa Wrede, Ivy Bourgeault, Jane Sandall, Raymond De Vries and Edwin R. van Teijlingen
4 Managerialism in the Australian public health sector: towards the hyper-rationalisation of professional bureaucracies	54	(20)
John Germov
5 What's in a care pathway? Towards a cultural cartography of the new NHS	74	(20)
Ruth Pinder, Roland Petchey, Sara Shaw and Yvonne Carter
6 Arguing about the evidence: readers, writers and inscription devices in coronary heart disease risk assessment	94	(21)
Catherine M. Will
7 Telephone triage, expert systems and clinical expertise	115	(28)
D. Greatbatch, G. Hanlon, J. Goode, A. O'Caithain, T. Strangleman and D. Luff
8 Finding dignity in dirty work: the constraints and rewards of low-wage home care labour	143	(24)
Clare L. Stacey
9 Access, boundaries and their effects: legitimate participation in anaesthesia	167	(16)
Dawn Goodwin, Catherine Pope, Maggie Mort and Andrew Smith
Notes on Contributors	183	(5)
Index	188