Pre-conference:Governing Health Systems - Aligning National and Regional Policy objectives (GOVH)

Tuesday 11 November, 09:00 – 17:00 Helsinki time
(with network lunch at 12:30)

Organised by

Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL)

Background

Effective governance is the foundation of a well-functioning health system. It ensures accountability, transparency, and coordination, enabling health policies to achieve their intended outcomes. Governance becomes particularly complex in multilevel systems, where national strategies must align with regional autonomy, diverse stakeholder interests, and varying capacities for policy implementation. Balancing these elements requires well-designed governance models that support collaboration, coherence, and adaptability.

Multilevel governance in health care is inherently challenging due to the need to coordinate decision-making across different levels of government and multiple institutions. Policy design, resource allocation, and service delivery must be harmonized while allowing flexibility to address regional needs. These complexities can lead to governance dilemmas such as fragmentation, duplication of efforts, and conflicting priorities. Understanding how different countries navigate these challenges provide valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, health system experts and other relevant stakeholders.

This pre-conference brings together health system experts, researchers, civil servants, and other key stakeholders to explore governance models, mechanisms, and best practices. A key focus will be the new Finnish health and social care system, which underwent a major reform in 2023. Finland’s restructured system consolidates responsibilities under newly established wellbeing services counties, shifting governance from municipal control to a regional level. This reform presents a unique case study to examine the opportunities and challenges of implementing new governance structures, fostering intergovernmental coordination, and ensuring effective service delivery. By analyzing Finland’s experience alongside other international cases, this seminar aims to generate practical lessons for strengthening governance in multilevel health systems.

Programme

Detailed programme will follow.

Registration

The registration fee is EUR 25. Networking lunch and refreshments are included.