Second day in Stockholm

We woke up to a beautiful, sunny morning...what a relief from the cold and rainy Sunday. After breakfast, we headed to our first appointment at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. This organization functions as the employer union of counties and municipalities in Sweden. We listened to a lecture by Ingvor Bjugard who introduced us to the governmental system of Sweden and particularly to the local level democracy. This was an awesome introduction to the health care system from local to national level and provided us with a general view of the roles and functions of the various levels of health care governance. We discussed some recent developments in health care and learned about what the national health insurance the system provides for Swedish citizens.

We also learned that the Swedish government is now made up of four parties that represent a shift from a socialist toward a more market-oriented economic policies. These policies include some degree of privatizing health care delivery, the topic of our visit at the Department of Psychology at Stockholms Universitet. There we met with a group of graduate student researchers and their advisor, Johnny Hellgren, to discuss their study of the impact of ownership type (non-profit vs. for-profit) on hospital employees and their work environment. What they have found so far in their on-going study is that the occupational group most affected by the change in ownership type (from public funding to for-profit hospital) were the registered nurses. Indeed, we had an interesting discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of the entire health care systems of Sweden and the U.S.

We had a great time at Stockholms Universitet and were treated to a delicious lunch by the Psychology Department. Special thanks go to Helena Falkenberg, Niklas Hansen, and Stephan Baraldi for being such gracious hosts. We all bought Stockholm University t-shirts to take home. This evening we will explore the city's many restaurants and walk around the shopping areas... then it's an early bed time as we have another busy day tomorrow -- a visit to one of the topmost medical research institutes in the world, Karolinska Hospital.