Improving healthcare access and availability with matching of care

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the development of a model including parameters for matching health-care services to patients. Inspired by ‘engaged scholarship’, the researchers practised continuous and close collaboration with practitioners at Region Skane in Sweden. The agenda was based on questions and experiences that evolved from theory and experience gained during previous research, while the practitioners’ agenda was based on problems and solutions arising within the organisation. As a result, mutual interpretations and concept creation were created and thus also the exchange of knowledge, information and competence between researchers and practitioners. The thoughts concerning the parameters included in a matching model emerged during meetings. The supportive data was conceptualised, converted and incorporated into an array of parameters illustrating coordination and matching in healthcare. T he healthcare matching concept, meaning a specified form of coordination, was applied as the main concept in the study. One contribution regarded how the coordination of health-care services occurs in Region Skane. An additional contribution was a discussion about which parameters are essential to include in the development of a matching model. Finally, there was a consideration concerning what kind of social values the matching model created. A fruitful way of implementing a matching model in healthcare is making use of a pilot project at a smaller organisation in a Swedish region.