Sammanfattning
The new Health and Care Services Act from 2012 commits municipalities and health enterprises
to sign a cooperation contract. The contracts aim to promote collaboration between municipalities and
health enterprises by stating the distribution of tasks and responsibilities and establishing good
local collaboration practices. In this paper, we explore the extent to which the introduction of these
contracts affects levels of conflicts and perceived collaboration between municipalities and health
enterprises with regard to patient discharge practices between levels of care. Data sources include
cases reported to and decisions made by the National Committee for Dispute Resolution for the
Health and Care Sector; a survey among key-persons from all health enterprises; and interviews with
informants from four case-municipalities. By the end of 2015, the National Committee had received
17 cases. Most of the cases involved patient discharge. Survey- and interview data indicated that
conflicts or disagreements that are not presented to the National Committee concerned patient
discharge as well. Informants from the case-municipalities reported the increased speed in the
transfer of patients between services and sectors to be their main challenge. The results seem to
indicate that the introduction of cooperation contracts has not contributed to reduce tensions and
conflicts. It remains uncertain if conflicts would have been more frequent and severe without such
contracts. Overall, the findings in this paper underlined that cooperation contracts may constitute a
useful framework for coordination between hospitals and municipalities, but cannot replace the day-
to-day dialogue in discharging patients from hospital to municipal care services.