The Value of Systems and Complexity Sciences for Healthcare

This visionary reframing of health and healthcare uses a complexity science approach to building healthcare systems that are accessible, effective, and prepared for change and challenges. Its holistic map for understanding the human organism emphasizes the interconnectedness of the individual's physical, psychological, cognitive, and sociocultural functioning. Applications of this approach are described in primary, specialist, and emergency care and at the organizational and policy levels, from translating findings to practice, to problem solving and evaluation. In this model, the differences between disease and illness and treating illness and restoring health are not mere wordplay, but instead are robust concepts reflecting real-world issues and their solutions.
Based on the Proceedings of the 1st International Conference of Systems and Complexity for Healthcare, topics covered include:

• Coping with complexity and uncertainty: insights from studying epidemiology in family medicine 
• Anticipation in complex systems: potential implications for improving safety and quality in healthcare 
• Monitoring variability and complexity at the bedside 
• Viewing mental health through the lens of complexity science 
• Ethical complexities in systems healthcare: what care and for whom? 
• The value of systems and complexity thinking to enable change in adaptive healthcare organizations supported by informatics 
• If the facts don't fit the theory, change the theory: implications for health system reform 
The Value of Systems and Complexity Sciences for Healthcare will interest and inspire health and disease researchers, health professionals, health care planners, health system financiers, health system administrators, health services administrators, health professional educators, and, last but not least, current and future patients.

Joachim P. Sturmberg, MBBS, DORACOG, MFM, PhD, FRACGP, is conjoint associate professor of General Practice in the School of Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medicine, at The University of Newcastle in Newcastle, Australia. He is a graduate of Lübeck Medical School in Germany, where he also completed his PhD. Since 1989, Sturmberg has worked in an urban group practice in the Central Coast of New South Wales. His research focuses on understanding the complex interconnected features of person-centered healthcare. Together with his collaborators, Sturmberg proposes that a truly functional health system ought to always focus on the needs of the person/patient across all domains affecting health -- local health delivery services, local and regional social and economic infrastructure and services, as well as in all portfolios at the national policy levels. These complex interdependent features of a person-centered healthcare system are described by the health vortex model. Sturmberg's current research focuses on operationalizing the health vortex model, integrating the physiology of health with health care delivery, the socioeconomic domains affecting health, and the impact of policy decisions on health and the healthcare system. nt co-editors in chief of the Forum on Systems and Complexity in Medicine and Healthcare as part of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. Sturmberg co-chairs the Complexities in Health Special Interest Group in WONCA (World Organization of National Colleges, Academies and Academic Associations of General Practitioners/Family Physicians) with Martin and Jim Price.