19142: Reimagining Health Systems Through the Lens of Complexity Theory

Healthcare systems have traditionally prioritized disease-centered medical care, a paradigm which has proven unsustainable amidst ageing populations and chronic disease epidemic. This requires a shift towards a patient- and system-centered paradigm that incorporates a broader spectrum of individuals, stakeholders and activities, thereby blurring the boundaries between subsystems, and integrating and synchronizing all stakeholders involved in health promotion and delivery. From a scholarly perspective, this paradigm shift requires a deeper integration among distinct theory lenses and disciplines. Complexity theory, conceptualizing healthcare systems as highly interactive and adaptive, offers a unifying framework for understanding the diverse and evolving interdependencies actors within a healthcare system. Its principles, such as adaptability and self-organization, offer valuable insights for redesigning and managing patient-centered healthcare systems. To advance this integration into the management domain, this panel symposium will bring together four academics who are experts in healthcare service management, healthcare system innovation and leadership, which they study through the complexity lens. These scholars will contribute diverse and complementary perspectives and explore how they can be applied in designing, managing and leading patient-centered healthcare systems, as well as implementing innovation. The first part of the symposium will consist in brief presentations. They will be followed by a semi-structured moderated panel discussion examining benefits and challenges of adopting complexity theory to explore the dynamics of healthcare systems; ways of unifying the complexity theory framework across management sub-domains; and ways of bridging the gap between natural and management science to fully exploit the key concepts and ideas in complexity theory.