Bridging healthcare and society

In contemporary societies healthcare is a key social institute that addresses the issues of maintenance and improvement of citizens’ health. While population health is largely produced outside of healthcare settings themselves, the functioning of healthcare, including diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of illness, injury, and other impairments, is essential for people’s wellbeing. Yet, healthcare can be and often is insufficiently accessible, responsive, and efficient for different members of society. How can healthcare provision and society be bridged? Through the exploration of a combination of theoretical and practical perspectives, this online course highlights the necessity of a dialogue and collaboration between healthcare professionals, patients, and the public at large. Course participants will critically explore challenges posed by disjunctures between healthcare and society, analyze both benefits and unintended consequences of bridging the two, and propose ways to accomplish the bridging in practice of healthcare provision. After completion of this course you will be able to: 1. Recognize disjunctures between healthcare provision and society 2. Be aware of consequences of disjunctures between healthcare provision and society 3. Identify opportunities for bridging healthcare provision and society, using a biosocial approach to health 4. Analyze cases of disjunctures between healthcare provision and society, and propose opportunities for bridging 5. Recognize the historical trends of scientification, professionalization, and medicalization, in the relations between medicine, health care, and society. This course was developed by a consortium of five universities: Maastricht University, National Research Tomsk State University, National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy", National Pirogov Memorial Medical University, Vinnytsya, and Siberian State Medical University within the framework of BIHSENA project. BIHSENA stands for “Bridging Innovations, Health and Societies: Educational capacity building in the Eastern European Neighbouring Areas”. BIHSENA project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This course reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.