As part of the North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (NAO) Lecture Series we welcome Tin Tenbensel on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 at 12:00 PM in HS 412 (Health Sciences Building, 155 College Street, Toronto). This event is free of charge and open to anyone. Forward it to a friend who might be interested.

Tales from the South Seas – The Politics of Health Policy Reform without the Medical Veto in Aotearoa/New Zealand

As many Canadian health policy researchers have noted, the veto power of the provincial medical associations constitutes a substantial constraint on what Canadian governments can and cannot do in health policy. So, imagine a very similar system in which this constraint is absent. In New Zealand, organised medicine has not traditionally played a strong formal role in health policy processes. There are many recent examples of major policy change in NZ in which organised medicine did not play a large role in formulation, and could not block the features of the policy that may have adverse implications for their constituents. In this context, it is worth asking whether New Zealand has had any more success in advancing health policy projects such as primary care reform that may be unsettling for medical interests.

In this seminar, Tenbensel will explore the story of New Zealand’s primary care reforms since 2001 – its successes and its unfulfilled expectations, its effects on medical and other health professions, and the lessons from this experience that may be applicable to other jurisdictions. The New Zealand primary health care reform story is one that clearly demonstrates the importance of implementation processes, and the need for policymakers to understand what work is necessary after policy decisions are made.

Click Here to Register

Tim Tenbensel

Tim Tenbensel is an Associate Professor of health policy at the School of Population Health, University of Auckland. He is a political scientist and his research interests include health policy implementation, comparative health policy, performance management in health systems and the application of complexity theory to health system contexts.

North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (NAO)

The North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (NAO) is a collaborative partnership of interested researchers, health organizations, and governments promoting evidence-informed health system policy decision-making. Due to the high degree of health system decentralization in the United States and Canada, the NAO is committed to focusing attention on comparing health systems and policies at the provincial and state level in federations.