Fair Resource Allocation and Rationing at the Bedside

Health systems need to set priorities fairly. In one way or another, part of this important task will fall to physicians. How do they make judgments about resource stewardship, and how should they do so? How can they make such decisions in a manner that is compatible with their clinical duties to patients? In this book, philosophers, bioethicists, physicians, lawyers and health policy experts make the case that priority setting and rationing contribute significantly to the possibility of affordable and fair healthcare and that clinicians play an indispensable role in that process. The book depicts the results of a survey of European physicians about their experiences with rationing and other cost containment strategies, and their perception of scarcity and fairness in their health care systems. Responding to and complementing these findings, commentators discuss why resource allocation and bedside rationing is necessary and justifiable. The book explores how bedside rationing relates to clinical judgments about medical necessity and medical indications, marginal benefits, weak evidence based medicine, off-label use. The book highlights how comparative studies of health care systems can advance more effective and fair bedside rationing through learning from one another. From a practical standpoint, the book offers a number of strategies for health care systems and clinicians to work in tandem to allocate and ration resources as fairly as possible: how to foster more attention to fairness when rationing at the bedside, how to avoid exacerbating health disparities when allocating resources, how to teach about bedside rationing to students, how to discuss rationing more explicitly in the public arena and in the doctor's office.

Marion Danis is Head of the Section on Ethics and Health Policy in the Department of Bioethics in the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health and Chief of the Bioethics Consultation Service at the Clinical Center. Her research focuses predominantly on improving the health of disadvantaged populations and on strategies for public engagement in priority setting. She is also serves as a general internist in a primary care clinic Montgomery County, Maryland.

Samia A. Hurst is professor of Bioethics and ethics consultant at Geneva University's medical school in Switzerland, chief editor of the Swiss bioethics journal Bioethica Forum, and a member of Switzerland's National Ethics Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics. Her research focuses on fairness in clinical practice, and the protection of vulnerable persons.

Leonard Fleck, Ph.D. is a Professor of Philosophy and Medical Ethics in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University. His areas of research include social and political philosophy, theories of health care justice, health care rationing, democratic deliberation, ethical and policy issues related to genetics.

Reidun Forde is an MD and a previous Chair of the Council for Medical Ethics , Norwegian Medical Association. She was member of the second governmental commission on health priority making in Norway, and is also a member of the recently appointed third priority commission. She was also member of the first National Health Priority Council. Her research is on clinical ethics, end of life issues and resource allocation issues.

Anne Slowther is Associate Professor of Clinical Ethics at Warwick Medical School, UK, an ethics consultant at the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, and a family physician. She is chair of the UK Clinical Ethics Network and a member of the Governing Body of the Institute of Medical Ethics. Her research interests are in ethical decision making in clinical practice and evaluation of clinical ethics support.