0000000000178966
AUTHOR
Bjørnulf Arntsen
Associations between structures, processes and outcomes in inter-municipal cooperation in out-of-hours services in Norway: A survey study
Abstract Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) has gained widespread recognition as a beneficial strategy for improving efficiency and quality in the provision of out-of-hours emergency care services (OOH services). Little attention, however, has been given to the additional costs of cooperation and the relational processes through which benefits and costs are likely to result. Based on survey data from 266 (77%) Norwegian municipalities involved in IMC in OOH services in 2015, this study aimed to investigate how the structure (governance form, complexity and stability) and quality (trust and consensus) of cooperation processes interact to influence the perceived outcomes (benefits and costs) o…
Asymmetry in inter-municipal cooperation in health services - How does it affect service quality and autonomy?
Throughout Europe, local health services are increasingly being provided through various forms of inter-municipal cooperation (IMC). One of the most common forms of IMC is when small municipalities delegate the operational responsibility for providing health services to a larger host municipality. However, despite the size asymmetry usually inherent in this type of IMC, this aspect has largely been neglected in the existing literature, which mainly focuses on the size of individual municipalities. Based on data from 97 partner municipalities and 25 host municipalities in Norway, this study examines how varying degrees of size asymmetry between them affect the perceived service quality and l…
Drivers and barriers of inter-municipal cooperation in health services – the Norwegian case
Inter-municipal cooperation in service delivery is widespread, as is the notion that this type of cooperation is primarily driven by economies of scale. However, the empirical results appear to be ...