Learning coordination: Health networks

Le cas d'un réseau de santé

By Corinne GRENIER
Professeur associé, coordinatrice scientifique Pôle Santé et Social, Euromed Marseille Ecole de management et chercheur au laboratoire Tech-CICO, Université de technologie de Troyes

Health networks form for the purpose of providing innovative responses to poorly known or complicated pathologies. They give rise to new ways of organizing group actions around patients: decompartmentalize health professions, boost cooperation, place the patient at the center of concern, look for supplementary resources, circulate knowledge, improve quality, reduce costs… But this slow, tricky process starts out with an informal period when parties gradually define the reasons for forming a group and draw up the first procedures for collectively working together. Few initiatives move beyond this critical phase of improving interpersonal relationships, which is never neutral. It involves redefining “occupational territories” and necessitates a managerial approach, to which health professionals are seldom accustomed. Through a study of how the RPM Network (Réseau Pôle Mémoire) was set up, we see the extent to which a discussion of cases promoted the learning of new methods of coordination in line with the specific characteristics of the organizations involved.