My research is mainly in health economics, with a particular interest in how the organization and financing of health care affect the behavior of providers and patients. Most of my empirical research concerns the Swedish health care system and uses administrative register data.
A recurring theme in my research is primary care. I have studied provider payment, competition and entry, patient choice, socioeconomic inequalities, digital health care, and the organization of primary care. Much of my current research concerns continuity of care, ownership and organization, and the role of multidisciplinary teams.
For a complete overview of my research output, see my list of publications.
Continuity in the patient–physician relationship is widely regarded as a core feature of primary care, but Swedish primary care has traditionally been characterized by relatively low physician continuity. Together with colleagues, I study why continuity differs across patients and primary care practices, how continuity can be improved, and what happens to patients when their regular physician leaves.
Recent work in this area examines the role of assigning patients to a named GP, physician turnover in multiprofessional primary care teams, and organizational and individual determinants of continuity. Ongoing work studies the consequences of physician exits for patients and their remaining colleagues.
Another strand of my research concerns how the institutional environment of primary care affects provider behavior and patient outcomes. This includes work on competition and patient choice, public and private ownership, corporate ownership, and the design of provider payment systems.
Recent studies examine how ownership interacts with mixed payment systems and provider objectives, whether socioeconomic risk adjustment of capitation payments affects the distribution of care, and whether patient choice contributes to socioeconomic differences in the quality of care providers.
An increasing share of my current research concerns the organization of primary care around multidisciplinary teams and coordination between different providers. Current projects study team-based and coordinated models of care, including integrated home-based care for older people and cancer patients.
I am particularly interested in how changes in the organization of work affect continuity, coordination, the roles of different health professionals, and the use of health care resources.
I have studied the development of direct-to-consumer digital primary care in Sweden and its consequences for health care utilization. My research asks whether digital consultations substitute for conventional primary care or generate additional use of care, how patients combine digital and in-person services, and how the organization and financing of digital care affect these patterns.
Recent work examines substitution between online and in-person physician consultations among young adults.
I also work on broader questions concerning the organization and performance of publicly funded health and social care. Recent work includes research on productivity measurement in Swedish health care and on whether welfare technologies in elderly care are associated with increased efficiency.