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SYSTEM |
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Bottom Line |
A set of activities with a common set of objectives with an annual report. |
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Significance
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Most of healthcare is the opposite of a system – i.e. it is the random movement of patients, professionals, blood samples and reports, or to use a biological term: Brownian Movement. |
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Examples of how the term is used; Extract from the Better Value Healthcare 21st Century Glossary |
“The concept of a production system as a socio-technical system designates a general field of study concerned with the interrelations of the technical and socio-psychological organization of industrial production systems.” … “the concept of a socio-technical system arose from the consideration that any production system requires both a technological organization – equipment and process layout – and a work organization relating to each other those who carry out the necessary tasks. The technological demands place limits on the type of work organization possible, but a work organization has social and psychological properties of its own that are independent of technology”...”a socio- technical system must also satisfy the financial conditions of the industry of which it is a part. It must have economic validity. It has in fact social, technological and economic dimensions, all of which are interdependent but all of which have independent values of their own.’ ” (Rice: Productivity and Social Organization.)
“What distinguishes systems is that it is a subject which can talk about the other subjects. It is not a discipline to be put in the same set as the others, it is a meta-discipline whose subject matter can be applied within virtually any other discipline.” Source: Checkland, P. (1993) Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. John Wiley & Sons,
“The systems paradigm is concerned with wholes and their properties. It is holistic, but not in the usual (vulgar) sense of taking in the whole; systems concepts are concerned with wholes and their hierarchical arrangement rather than with the whole.” Source: Checkland, P. (1993) Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. John Wiley & Sons,
“Set of interdependent elements interacting to achieve a common aim. These elements may be both human and nonhuman (equipment, technologies, etc.).” Source: Kohn, L.T., Corrigan, J.M., Donaldson, M.S. (Eds). Committee on Quality of Health Care America, Institute of Medicine. (2000) To Err is Human. Building a Safer Health System. National Academy Press, Washington. (p.211).
“A system is defined as a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish a specific aim.”
“A system is an integrated series of parts with a clearly defined goal.”
“Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines a system as ‘an assemblage of objects united by some form of regular interaction of interdependence’. Like the solar system, the nervous system or the operating system of your computer, this is the sense in which I use the word ‘system’ in this book. Source: Lovelock, J. (2009) The Vanishing Face of Gaia. A final warning. Allen Lane, Penguin (p.168).
“Calling a group of healthcare organizations a “system” has become common practice. As Ackoff (1974, 1994) and others have noted, however, true systems involve a functionally related group of interacting, interrelated or interdependent elements forming a complex whole with a common aim. In simpler terms, systems elements must be capable of working together to achieve shared goals; otherwise, they are merely individual parts with separate missions.” Source: Baker, G.R., Macintosh-Murray, A., Porcellato, C., Dionne, L., Stelmacovich, K., Born, K. (2008) High Performing Healthcare Systems. Delivering Quality by Design. Longwoods Publishing Corporation. (p.14).
“A taxonomy of health system arrangements provides additional categorisation, distinguishing between governance arrangements (political, economic and administrative authority in the management of health systems), financial arrangements (funding and incentive systems, as well as financing), delivery arrangements (human resources for health, as well as service delivery), and interventions (programmes, services, and technologies).” Most descriptions of health system elements omit the implementation strategies to support the use of cost-effective interventions. Source: Lewin S, Lavis JN, Oxman AD, Bastias G, Chopra M, Ciapponi A, Flottorp S, Marti SG, Pantoja T, Rada G, Souza N, Treweek S, Wysonage CS, Haines A. Alma-Ata: Rebirth and Revision 2: Supporting the delivery of cost-effective interventions in primary health-care systems in low-income and middle-income countries: an overview of systematic reviews. Lancet 2008;372:928. |
