Rebooting Healthcare: Deploying Collaborative Networks to Enhance Healthcare Effectiveness

Abstract

The following Master Thesis investigates how Collaborative Networks may be sustained in healthcare, by investigating their value creation and value appropriation activities. Collaborative Networks have appeared, due to the knowledge creation benefits these yield. In contrast to traditional forms of formal inter-firm relations, community-based organizational designs rely on selforganizing actors, who jointly create value. To facilitate this collaborative value creation, the Collaborative Network organizations provide social- and technical infrastructures. Hence, for the value creation to be sustained, these organizations need to survive. Despite successful examples, little is still known about how Collaborative Networks can be sustainably arranged. This thesis is conducted as a qualitative case study, with semi-structured interviews of several Collaborative Networks in healthcare, so-called Learning Networks, conducting research- and Quality Improvement initiatives. The interviews surfaced motivation and coordination as the core drivers of value creation in the Learning Networks, which presently are sustained by external funding sources. We find that the networks are not presently configured for financial value appropriation. A link between value appropriation and value creation is discovered, signaling that present value is sub-optimized. By increasing the financial value appropriated by the network organizer, we argue how the Learning Networks not only can ensure their sustainability, but even enhance their value creation activities. We argue that the Learning Networks should move away from their current scope of learning activities, to more permanent providers of care, so-called Learning Health Systems.