Noricum - healthy cooperation or nasty snake pit: a strategic role play teaching how to handle healthcare system conflicts

Continuous conflicts of interests between numerous stakeholders characterize the situation in most healthcare systems. This complex and dynamic situation is taught to students of healthcare management in a role-play, in which they reorganize a healthcare system for a fictitious country: Students organize themselves in subgroups, take the roles of central stakeholders, prepare their political strategies, and negotiate contracts and legislation to (re)structure Noricum’s healthcare system. Students and instructors reconsider the resulting health care system and the process of its development in a feedback workshop, learning results of the whole process are reflected by students individually. The core teaching concept is based on a high degree of freedom for students resulting in a huge challenge for them, which is counterbalanced by comprehensive feedback. Experience of ten years is shown and the concept is discussed in the context of the approaches of constructive alignment and making learning visible.