Is a larger patient benefit always better in healthcare priority setting?

When considering the introduction of a new intervention in a budget constrained healthcare system, priority setting based on fair principles is fundamental. In many jurisdictions, a multi-criteria approach with several different considerations is employed, including severity and cost-effectiveness. Such multi-criteria approaches raise questions about how to balance different considerations against each other, and how to understand the logical or normative relations between them.

Relational continuity may give better clinical outcomes in patients with serious mental illness - a systematic review.

Background: Continuity of care is considered important for results of treatment of serious mental illness (SMI). Yet, evidence of associations between relational continuity and different medical and social outcomes is sparse. Research approaches differ considerably regarding how to best assess continuity as well as which outcome to study.

Should Severity Assessments in Healthcare Priority Setting be Risk- and Time-Sensitive?

Background: Severity plays an essential role in healthcare priority setting. Still, severity is an under-theorised concept. One controversy concerns whether severity should be risk- and/or time-sensitive.

Outcomes associated with higher relational continuity in the treatment of persons with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A systematic review.

Background: Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are chronic conditions where relational continuity of care, as in regularly meeting the same health care provider, creates opportunities for monitoring and adjustment of treatment based on an individual's changing needs, potentially affecting quality of delivered care. The aim of this systematic review was to investigate the effects of relational continuity in the treatment of persons with asthma or COPD.

Methods: Eleven databases (CINAHL, Medline, PsycINFO, Scopus, Embase, Cochrane Library, Database of Systematic Review of Effects, DARE, Epistemonikos, NICE Evidence Search, KSR Evidence and AHRQ) were searched between January 1, 2000, and February 1 - 4, 2021, for controlled and observational studies about relational continuity and health outcomes for persons with asthma and/or COPD.

Withholding and withdrawing treatment for cost-effectiveness reasons: Are they ethically on par?

In healthcare priority settings, early access to treatment before reimbursement decisions gives rise to problems of whether negative decisions for cost-effectiveness reasons should result in withdrawing treatment, already accessed by patients. Among professionals there seems to be a strong attitude to distinguish between withdrawing and withholding treatment, viewing the former as ethically worse. In this article the distinction between withdrawing and withholding treatment for reasons of cost effectiveness is explored by analysing the doing/allowing distinction, different theories of justice, consequentialist and virtue perspectives.