Resemiotization of a Policy Initiative: Promoting Open Disclosure as ‘Open Communication about Clinical Adverse Events’

Abstract

This chapter addresses how Open Disclosure as national health reform policy resemiotized across practices, sites, and genres in Australia. This discussion is central to appreciating not just the innovative ways in which contemporary policymakers approach policymaking (Jorm, Banks, and Twohill, 2008), but also the opportunities that this new modality of policymaking affords social researchers. Open Disclosure provides a unique case study of how policy reform ranges across much more than bureaucrats drafting and distributing formal guidelines: they now liaise intensively with governmental, nongovernmental, and consumer stakeholders, and they become involved with scenario testing, simulation training, redevelopment, and targeted evaluation of policy plans and implementation processes. The kinds of semiotic transitions that accompany these processes are the concerns of the present chapter.