Prerequisites for Managing Effectiveness in Finnish Wellbeing Services Counties.
Keywords:
effectiveness, health policy, evaluation, knowledge management, sensemakingAbstract
This article describes the premises and prerequisites for managing effectiveness in public health and social services from the viewpoint of Finnish wellbeing services counties. Effectiveness is the central premise of national welfare policy, emphasizing value-based strategies and outcome-based management in designing future service systems. Goal achievement and cultural change are key management issues. Our qualitative analysis of policy documents reveals that effectiveness is an elusive and abstract welfare policy goal, and methods for its management are largely absent from the current discussion. This deficit argues for a need to examine the prerequisites for managing the effectiveness in wellbeing services counties. In our study, we identified five mechanisms for managing effectiveness: 1) welfare policy as a guideline for goal setting, 2) effectiveness as a matter of resource allocation, 3) evaluation and measurement as tools for managing effectiveness, 4) use of effectiveness knowledge in management, and 5) collective sensemaking of effectiveness. These management mechanisms explain the prerequisites of how the aim of effectiveness can be operationalized and managed in wellbeing services counties. To manage effectiveness, the article calls for collective knowledge formation in transforming effectiveness into the activities of wellbeing services counties, service organizations and professionals.
