It’s time for rational rationing

It's time for rational rationing.

Rational requesting or rationing testing?

T he UK government has acknowledged that up to 70% of medical diagnoses now rely on pathology laboratory analyses. One consequence of such reliance is an ever increasing laboratory workload, usually, in National Health Service laboratories, at a rate in excess of the financial resources to support it. It follows that this demand can only be serviced by increased efficiency. One area where deman...

Rationing time.

M rs. W is my first patient of the afternoon. She is a new patient with no chief complaint, so the purpose of the visit is simply to establish care. I find out that Mrs. W lost her job and her health insurance six months ago and has not been treated for several chronic diseases for some time. She is part of a growing number of patients in our community who, because of the economic downturn, hav...

Can rationing of cardiological services be rational?

In the United Kingdom there is a pervading perception that provision of health resources has not kept up with the availability of effective clinical procedures. By international standards expenditure on health services expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product remains low.' To clinicians the system feels increasingly tight financially because resources are not available to meet expres...

Rationing health care: its impact and implications for hematology-oncology.

Rationing of health care in the United States currently exists via the covert mechanism of restricting significant segments of medical care for many of those who cannot afford it. Provision of universal health care would necessitate explicit rationing of certain interventions and technologies, even though an individual could afford them. The British and Canadian experiences provide lessons from...