Research
The department conducts various research projects to explore how sustainable innovation can be promoted within healthcare and beyond.
One key focus is the comparative assessment of sustainability indicators for health technologies and institutions. Management can only identify areas with the greatest improvement potential or determine if a new, seemingly "greener" technology truly meets its environmental claims based on reliable data. For example, we analyze greenhouse gas emissions from healthcare services and are working on a benchmarking system that allows institutions such as hospitals to easily compare the climate friendliness of their organizations with others. This research project is funded by the state of Bremen as part of the research consortium "Healthy City Bremen."
Health economic evaluation methods provide a scientifically recognized standard for assessing health innovations. However, they primarily consider health benefits and costs to health systems and possibly individuals, along with productivity losses. It is unclear how ecological sustainability (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions) can be validly incorporated into these evaluations. The department is conducting both theoretical and empirical research in this area—such as how to integrate the climate impact of new digital prevention programs into economic evaluations. This research project is supported by funds from the Leibniz Science Campus Digital Public Health.
As Kurt Lewin said, "Nothing is as practical as a good theory": every problem-solving approach is based on a theory of what the problem actually is and how it can be resolved. Applying inappropriate theories can easily lead to actions that exacerbate rather than alleviate problems—such as prescribing antibiotics for a viral infection. Economics is similarly criticized when it attempts to solve problems caused by typical human biases in thinking and feeling with concepts designed for entirely rational decision-making. Another research focus is to examine the applicability of economic theories to the many facets of sustainability problems from scientific and ethical perspectives. This includes exploring John Rawls' concept of the "wide reflective equilibrium." The goal is to develop new concepts for research and teaching that better utilize the diversity of economic theories to promote sustainable innovation.
The Department of Management in Healthcare engages in these research areas through interdisciplinary collaboration with colleagues at IPP, SOCIUM, BIPS, and the University of Bremen's research focus 6, as well as beyond. This contributes to the university's collective efforts toward becoming a climate university.