Studying complexity in health services research: desperately seeking an overdue paradigm shift (20 June 2018)

Summary

Complexity is often talked about in health services research, but it has not been sufficiently studied. In this article in the journal BMC Medicine, the authors argue that in open systems characterised by dynamically changing inter-relationships and tensions, conventional research designs must be augmented by the study of how we can best deal with uncertainty, unpredictability and emergent causality. They propose an agenda for future research and invite researchers to contribute to the conversation.