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May 10, 2007
I. ERGIHCS International Conference Innovation and Change in Health Care Systems
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Dates: 10 -12 May 2007
Confirmation date: 30 March 2007
Venue: Andrássy University
Download Confirmation Form (MS Word) and send to send to Stefan Okruch, stefan.okruch@andrassyuni.hu by March 30.
The European Research Group on Innovation and Change in Health Care Systems (ERGIHCS) is an initiative of researchers at European universities and research institutes. Their main interest is to explain the factors and their interaction that affect the evolution of health care systems. By applying advanced methods in institutional and evolutionary economics on current issues their ultimate objective is to design sustainable policies and give advice to decision-makers in the relevant policy fields.
All over the world health care systems face a tremendous pressure for reforms, mainly caused by tightening financial constraints, but also by demographic changes. Given the importance of medical progress in improving the human condition and the increasing share of health care activities in GDP, a focus on innovation and change in health care is an essential extension of health economics research. The ERGIHCS starts out from the diagnosis that existing approaches in health economics need to be expanded and enriched with insights and methods of evolutionary and institutional economics. The standard approaches analyze how innovations in the medical sector influence prices, quantities and qualities of medical services while treating them as exogenously given. In contrast to that, the ERGIHCS aims to analyze in detail how innovations emerge and diffuse by the interaction of the actors involved in health care systems. By identifying the mechanisms that shape how new institutions, products and organizational forms are generated in health care systems, statements about their impact on health care expenditures and outcomes can be derived. By analyzing the incentives of the main actors, viable prescriptions to better direct the path of innovations in the medical sector can be obtained for public policymakers.
Accordingly, the ERGIHCS focuses primarily on (1) institutional innovation in health care systems and industry evolution, on (2) policy change and competition among health care systems, and on (3) the demand for health care services and its long-run evolution. The I. ERGIHCS Conference is meant to bring together researchers of the relevant fields, to survey different approaches and to set the agenda for further research.
Paper submission: Invitation to the conference is based on an extended abstract of around 2000 words. The abstract must include information on the relevant theories, methodology, data, and (expected) results. MORE INFORMATION on submission procedures is soon available at http://www.ergo-inch-health.de/
Organizing committee
- Martina Eckardt; Witten/Herdecke University (Germany)
- Carsten Herrmann-Pillath, Witten/Herdecke University (Germany)
- Stefan Okruch, Andrássy University (Budapest, Hungary)
Contact person:
Martina Eckardt martina.eckardt@uni-wh.de
Faculty of Management and Economics
Witten/Herdecke University
Alfred-Herrhausen-Strasse 50
58448 Witten
Germany
Address of hosting university
Andrássy University
Pollack Mihály tér 3
H-1088 Budapest
