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Family Practice Advance Access originally published online on April 5, 2006
Family Practice 2006 23(3):385-390; doi:10.1093/fampra/cml011
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© The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Wanted—new methodologies for health service research. Is complexity theory the answer?

David Kernick

St Thomas Health Centre Cowick Street, Exeter EX4 1HJ, UK

Correspondence to David Kernick; Email: su1838{at}eclipse.co.uk

Despite a recognition that health service research has failed to make its full contribution to health service improvement, the fact that evidence is not widely accommodated into practice is seen as a failure of communication rather than the inappropriate application of a particular form of investigation. Dominant theoretical frameworks still retain the fundamental idea that order needs to be somehow created by external forces and that organizational issues will inevitably yield to more collection of data and the application of increasingly sophisticated analytical techniques. This paper explores alternative perspectives and methodological opportunities that arise from viewing health service as a complex non-linear system. This approach may offer new research insights that more accurately reflect underlying mechanisms and may help to explain the limitations of current analytical techniques.

Keywords. Complexity, health service research, methodology.


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