MGZ

Project Description

Long-term care for older persons and people with disabilities faces grand capacity problems. These shortages are particularly severe for the medically trained professions, such as nurse practitioners, general practitioners (GPs), older person care physicians and physicians of intellectual disability medicine. Solutions to these problems are increasingly sought in new and regional ways of organising general medical care for older persons and people with disabilities. This transition not only requires new service provisions; it also has implications for institutionalised governance arrangements and policy actors (e.g. regulatory agencies, professional associations, care insurers) who are called to respond to and accommodate or even stimulate these transitions. Together with Vilans (the Dutch knowledge institute for long-term care), ESHPM aims to contribute to – and critically study – this transition towards regional care provision.

From 2023 to end 2025, researchers of ESHPM will investigate how healthcare providers, policy makers and system parties collaborate (or not) to build new regional care infrastructures, and with what consequences for care delivery. Building on insights of our previous research project (RegioZ), we have developed four main research themes that we will further explore in the coming years. (1) How are promising new ways of organising general medical care scaled up and what are constituting mechanisms of scaling?; (2) What are working mechanisms for cross sectoral and cross domain (social care, medical care, long-term care) initiatives in the care for older persons and persons with disabilities?; (3) What new policy instruments are created to facilitate regional collaboration among healthcare providers? And how do these instruments impact the transition to regional care collaboration in care for older persons and persons with disabilities?; And, finally, (4) how are existing financing schemes, accountability structures, and rules and regulation bent, adjusted, and/or sidestepped to make regional care provisions possible?    

Team

Jitse Schuurmans (project coordinator); Estella Posthuma (PhD candidate); Laura De Brabandere (PhD candidate); Oemar van der Woerd (Senior Researcher); Nienke van Pijkeren (Senior Researcher); Roland Bal (Professor of Healthcare Governance); Iris Wallenburg (Professor of Sociology of Care).

Publications MGZ in the region (including RegioZ):

2026

• Schuurmans, J., Haarman, N., te Rietmole, J. & Cevat, L. (2026) Aan Lijkschouw in een Verpleeghuis hoeft geen arts te pas te komen. Medisch Contact.
• Schuurmans, J., De Brabandere, L., Castelli, M., Wimmer, S., & Denis, J. L. (2026). Acting reactively: private investment, controversies and regulatory and policy responses in residential long-term care in Ontario (Canada), Lombardy (Italy), the Netherlands and England (United Kingdom). Health Economics, Policy and Law, 1-15.

2025

• Schuurmans, J. J., Felder, M., Bal, R., & Wallenburg, I. (2025). Reorganizing medical care for older persons in times of scarcity: A cybernetics analysis of work pressure and organizational change. Social Science & Medicine, 366, 117634.
• De Brabandere, L., Schuurmans, J., van der Woerd, O., Bal, R., & Wallenburg, I. (2025). Targeting ‘average Jane’: The co-modification of for-profit nursing home care in the Netherlands. Social Science & Medicine, 118712.

2024

• Van der Woerd, O., Wallenburg, I., Schuurmans, J., van der Scheer, W., & Bal, R. (2024). 'Vage beleidsfiguren' helpen bij lastige beleidsvragen. Sociale Vraagstukken (Dutch).
• Van der Woerd, O., Schuurmans, J., Wallenburg, I., van der Scheer, W., & Bal, R. (2024). Hoe wordt de regio tot 'sturingsobject' gemaakt?Opent extern Platform Overheid (Dutch).
• Van der Woerd, O., Schuurmans, J., Wallenburg, I., van der Scheer, W., & Bal, R. (2024). Heading for health policy reform: transforming regions of care from geographical place into governance object. Policy & Politics, 1(aop), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000030Opent extern.
• Van der Woerd, O., Schuurmans, J., Wallenburg, I., van der Scheer, W., & Bal, R. (2024). Netwerkvorming is professioneel aanmodderenOpent extern. PONT Zorg & Sociaal (Dutch).

2023

• Schuurmans, J., Stalenhoef, H., Bal, R., & Wallenburg, I. (2023). All the good care: Valuation and task differentiation in older person care. Sociology of Health & Illness, 45(7), 1560-1577.
• Van der Woerd, O., Wallenburg, I., van Der Scheer, W., & Bal, R. (2023). Regional network‐building for complexity: A region‐oriented policy response to increasing and varied demands for older person care in the Netherlands. Public Administration.

2022

• Schuurmans, J., Van der Woerd, O., Bal, R., & Wallenburg, I. (2022). Regionalisering in de ouderenzorg. Beleid en Maatschappij, 49(3), 220-239.
• Van de Bovenkamp, H., van Pijkeren, N., Ree, E., Aase, I., Johannessen, T., Vollaard, H., Wallenburg, I. Bal, R. & Wiig, S. (2022). Creativity at the margins: A cross-country case study on how Dutch and Norwegian peripheries address challenges to quality work in care for older persons. Health Policy, 127, 66-73.
• Van der Woerd, O., van Veen-Berkx, E., van der Scheer, W., & Bal, R. (2022). How does a Network Platform Work for Participating Actors Towards Integrated Care Governance? A Case Study of a Dutch Hospital Region. International Journal of Integrated Care, 22(4).

2021

• Van Pijkeren, N., Wallenburg, I., & Bal, R. (2021). Triage as an infrastructure of care: The intimate work of redistributing medical care in nursing homes. Sociology of Health & Illness, 43(7), 1682-1699.
• Schuurmans, J. J., van Pijkeren, N., Bal, R., & Wallenburg, I. (2021). Regionalization in elderly care: what makes up a healthcare region?. Journal of Health Organization and Management, 35(2), 229-243.