Governance Mechanism of E-health in Chinese Urban Communities: The Case of Zhabei District in Shanghai

Abstract

E-health governance can be divided into four kinds of models: government-oriented, market-oriented, government-market cooperation, and multi-collaborative governance. With the development of market economy, democratic consciousness and management philosophy, traditional e-health management faces many challenges. And multi-collaborative governance model is becoming a good choice for the community e-health. In order to further analyze the characteristics and applicability of this model and explore the sustainable development path, this paper selects Zhabei District as a typical case and distinguishes the roles of different governance bodies in community e-health. By this study, we recognize that the e-health governance of Chinese urban community has some problems, such as, insufficient involvement of non-governmental body, obvious conflict of interest and the lack of collaboration among the various subjects. Therefore, it is supposed to construct an integrated e-health development mechanism. Based on collaborative governance theory, the mechanism has to follow three basic principles. At the same time, effective operation of this mechanism need five mechanisms which include trust, communication and negotiation, cost sharing, supervision and feedback.

Key words: community e-health, collaborative governance, medical service, Zhabei District