Research: Priorities in Health Care
In times of limited resources within the health care sector, a pertinent issue for both health care administrators and politicians is that of making priorities between patients in need of treatment. An interesting aspect is that neither the public, nor the patients themselves, have been involved in discussion on prioritizations.
The need for well-informed priorities in Swedish health care has increased since the 1990’s. This development is due to different factors, such as the advances made in biotechnology, which has raised expectations in health care. But also demographic changes, in particular, the increase in the ranks of the elderly, are expected to put pressure on available health- care resources. At the same time, political and economic developments have been marked by increasing demands and diminishing allocations for health care.
Health care has become more complex, and ethics has increasingly become a required component of clinical practice. In particular, the demand on first-line professionals to make decisions concerning priority setting has become greater. In light of this, it is not surprising that stress related to ethical decision-making among health care professionals has been reported. Stress arises when the health-care provider believes he/she knows the morally desirable course of action to take, but is not able to implement the decision due to institutional, organizational or economic constraints.
We have looked into the effect of the organization of work on moral values of health professionals and their considerations related to prioritizations in health care and conducted a multi-disciplinary resarch project on the ethical, political and social aspects of setting priorities for the elderdly in health care.
Currently, a project on how patients prioritize in situations of limited resources is carried out in collaboration with researchers at the Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge.
In May 2004 a multi-disciplinary symposium entitled Just Health Care? was held in the biomedicine, ethics and society series.
More information:
- Mats G. Hansson, Professor of Biomedical Ethics
- Anna T. Höglund, Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor
- Sofia Kälvemark Sporrong, PhD
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