Public management in the health sector

Description

The idea and practice of performance management and measurement in New Zealand’s health sector has become well-established over the past decade. Over that time there have been two highly contrasting approaches to performance management in health—the National Health Targets regime of 2009-2018 and the System Level Measures framework that was introduced in 2016.

The Health Target regime held individual organisations accountable for the achievement of output and process targets. In the System Level Measures framework, in contrast, the key purpose of measuring performance is to enhance learning and quality improvement by fostering inter-organisational collaboration, with a greater focus on outcomes.

This contrast encapsulates many longstanding debates in public management and governance about what performance management is for, what type of measures should be used, and how it should be implemented. Should performance management be primarily about accountability and control, or should it be primarily about learning, underpinned by collaboration? Is it possible to generate a virtuous circle of accountability and learning, or are these two objectives incompatible in practice?

In this seminar, Associate Professor Tenbensel will compare and contrast the implementation consequences of both approaches based on research into the implementation of Health Targets and System Level Measures, and tease out the key implications for future performance management policies in the health sector.