New Co-facilitator at the Health Governance Cluster

Kirstine Zinck Pedersen has taken on the job as Co-facilitator at the Public-Private Platform Health Governance cluster.

The platform met Kirstine for a talk about her research and her motivation for engaging in the work of the Public-Private Platform. Recently, Kirstine has received, first a one year and then a second year post doc from the Danish Cancer Society at a total of 1,236,000 DKK. The project examines the introduction of clinical pathways in cancer treatment with specific attention to possible reconfigurations of clinical practice, medical reasoning, and the office of medicine. Kirstine is also part of a larger research project "Office as a Vocation" together with several other Platform members—a project funded by the Velux foundation. Kirstine's project will be an investigation into the ways in which recent reorganizations of healthcare affects the modern hospital clinic and what could be determined as the ‘Office of Medicine’.

The Platform’s Project Manager Julie Munk interviewed Kirstine concerning her research approach and how her study relates to the research agenda of the Public-Private Platform. Kirstine’s research attends to the organisational, practical, and ethical implications of recent transformations of the public sector - and in particular to the assumptions and constitutive effects of quality and safety reform programs in the healthcare sector. Kirstine points out that the healthcare sector – as well as the public sector in general – is under an enormous pressure to perform these years and in our search for reform strategies that deliver better, faster and cheaper healthcare we are often quick to import technologies and policy solutions developed in the private sector. However, the translation from one sector to another is not always as straightforward and smooth as one could wish for. The complexity of matters like this and the concurrent demand for mobilising more capacities and stakeholders in healthcare delivery make research in the organisational effects of shifting public-private delineations pertinent. In her role as a facilitator at the Health Governance cluster, Kirstine wishes to help strengthening and consolidating the cluster’s function as a platform for knowledge sharing and for inspiring new research ideas, collaborations and teaching opportunities.

Read more about Kirstine Zinck Pedersen and her research at CBS’ website.