Ethical issues in health care rationing.

SYMPOSIUM ON EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE Ethics, EBM, and hospital management

Matters of hospital management do not figure prominently on the medical ethics agenda. However, management decisions that have to be taken in the area of hospital care are in fact riddled with ethical questions and do have significant impact on patients, staff members, and the community being served. In this decision making process evidence based medicine (EBM) plays an increasingly important r...

Public views on health care rationing: a group discussion study.

This small-scale study develops a new methodology for investigating which ethical principles of health care rationing the public support after discussion and deliberation. In ten groups of about six people, members of the public are asked to discuss a hypothetical rationing choice, concerning four identified patients who are described in general terms but without detailed information. It is exp...

Should ethical and legal standards for physicians be changed to accommodate new models for rationing health care?

Ethical issues in pediatric critical care neurology.

Ethical issues in the critical care unit frequently arise in children with neurological problems. These ethical issues frequently challenge our medical management of such cases and can be quite problematic. This article reviews key ethical issues that may arise including informed consent, futility, justice/rationing, clinical research conduct and the severely compromised patient who is in eithe...

Age-based rationing of health care.

The U.S. has focused attention on the rising costs of health care coincident with the increasing age of the population. Arguments have been made to overtly ration care to older persons; however, general acceptance of the need to ration scarce resources, whether or not such a policy is actually formalized, can lead to covert rationing. Some overt rationing has already occurred, some of the data ...